


Coming Home to Ruin

by FanFiction_Artist_Prototype, Link-Trashart (FanFiction_Artist_Prototype)



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Based on a Tumblr Post, Culture, I just felt like saying that tbh, Introspection, King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule is a bitch, Mild Gore, No Romance, Other, Platonic Relationships, Racism, Self-Discovery, Zonai Link, finding yourself, headcanons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28000176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype/pseuds/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype, https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype/pseuds/Link-Trashart
Summary: Link wakes up a hundred years after being put into the Shrine of Resurrection; but there's something etched into his bones, burned into him by the stares, something about the very ground beneath his feet that calls to him that says to him 'you do not belong here' and apart from the looks? Link is more than happy to take that dismissal.His job is to free Princess Zelda and then he'll be free, that much he remembers. It's only the pleading tone with which Zelda had woken him that keeps him on task because whatever had trapped him has been dead for a century and something tells him, that the ghost who welcomed him on his journey knew it too.
Relationships: Daruk & Link & Mipha & Revali & Urbosa & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link & Prince Sidon, Link & Teba (Legend of Zelda), Link & The Gerudo, Link & Yunobo (Legend of Zelda), Link (Legend of Zelda) & Original Character(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 82





	1. A wandering dead man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [self_indulgent_authorship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/self_indulgent_authorship/gifts).



> This is based on @self_indulgent_authorship 's tumblr post about the Link depicted in the tapestry in BOTW from 10,000 yrs ago was a Zonai and I decided to take that idea and run with it?

After waking up Link knows three things for certain; His name is Link, he was ( _ ~~is?~~_ ) the hero of Hyrule and he's from Faron.

Why the last fact was important enough to be the one thing he remembered, he isn't sure. His name, his role in the world and even the ability to speak aloud were all lost to him but Faron... Faron is _important. Faron_ is something so ingrained in him that the Shrine of Resurrection (as the old man had called it and Link doesn't know anything now not really but something tells him Resurrection means death and... something inside him aches thinking he was put in a shrine that _isn't his peoples_ but it doesn't make sense because as far as he can tell he's Hylian as well so clearly it is something for his people) couldn't scrape it from his bones.

There is... one last thing though that he thinks he knows. Although he can't say for certain.

Link is, well, unwelcome is not the right word because the stablemen smiled at him with open faces and the Sheikah met his eyes and watched as he tried to speak with his hands but some of the other Hylians they give him a distance he doesn't understand. As far as he can tell it's because he looks different but there... there isn't really anything he has to reference why that would cause distance. He knows that his skin is far darker and his hair is red but does that really matter? He'd seen the tall ladies (Gerudo he thinks, his memory really isn't very good but he thinks that's what the woman (Ayaz) called her race) that travelled Hyrule in search of adventure and self-fulfilment and they had dark skin and red hair. Ayaz had seemed weary of him at first but they'd calmed whatever had made her upset upon initially spotting him.

He doesn't get why his skin and his hair would make people uneasy but it hurts. Especially when he comes into Hanato, searching for Impa's older sister, and the villager guarding the town refuses to lower his pitchfork. Refuses to let him use his hands until Link manages to pull down his cloack (because he has found everywhere in Hyrule he has gone so far has been too cold for him even though according to most others this is mild and 'the perfect temperature) to show the scars he knows spiderweb over his body like Faroah (another name he knows but no explanation as to why) had dragged their scales against him making it clear to the villager that he's not a threat.

Even though he's let into the village he's escorted, every time his eyes go towards a shop or a villager his escort will be sure to remind him that he's only here for Purah and so to _'hurry up and not let himself get distracted'_. Something deep in his chest tells him that the behaviour is _wrong_ , but he forces it down because Purah is important. 

Purah will know what to do, she _has_ to know what to do- _she has to because he doesn't know what he'll do if she doesn't._

The older Sheikah sister tells them to come into the research lab and after seeing Impa, Link had imagined an equally as wrinkled old woman to be in front of him when him and his escort came into the building but a small... child was stood before them. It's... odd. To see someone he knows is so old look so young and innocent (Is she older than him? he can't remember, he can't remember a lot of things though so he doesn't feel too bad about it, not when he has all the other forgotten things trying to weigh him down and splinter his chest open.)

A back is turned to them for a few moments more and the boy with the pitchfork sends him a look even though he has already demonstrated that he cannot talk ( _but he can._ _Not in a way that matters though, but his hands let him talk and in the early and late hours of the day he's been practicing making noises. But what he speaks is not the Hylian that he hears others talk with. But the words feel right and he knows what he's trying to say so he doesn't think too much on it)_ and eventually seemingly growing tired of waiting for someone who cannot speak to speak he breaks the silence, "Got a visitor for you lady, don't speak none though."

It's a sharp dig, sharper than the pitchfork would have been ( _almost was_ ), and it causes an inquisitive eye to turn away from the scattered sheets. Link thinks he recognizes some of the words on the sheet, recognizes both languages actually which is strange because one of them is making notes about how indecipherable the other is. He's come to question how he knows speech and movement and even some words like indecipherable and yet can't remember his past or what his parents looked like - or if he even had them.

" ~~ _ **Link**_~~?" 

_That's his name_ , but it's said so differently to how everyone else has said it. It's not in the same tongue but it feels _right because that is his name and suddenly it feels like what everyone has been calling him is different why does it feel so different-_

" ** _ ~~Link~~_** we've been waiting for you! Oh you're finally back, come here come here, let me look at you!"

-*-

Robbie, when he finally manages to trek all the way to the research centre (Lanayru and it's volatile weather calls to him but he rejects it for the time being. Any improvements to the slate, any _advantage_ he can scrounge up for himself is something that is not only welcome but a necessity), also calls him by his name and just like with Purah it is something that feels so fundamentally _right_ that he gives it even less thought than he did with Purah. 

The people of Akkala are better than the people of Hanato, the stable staff greet him with amused grins as he trudges up the hill with a discontent horse muffling at his sodden hair and the older woman who works the community cooking pot sits him down with weary bones and tells him stories of the mountains- tells him of the mysterious spring that resides just west of where they're sat, of the strange creature that will sell you things not of this world in exchange for monster parts. She also teaches him a few new recipes and when he leaves the next morning finally dried up she waves him off with a smile and the strong genuine sentiment for him to return and tell her stories of his own adventures in return.

He decides that the north Akkala stables are the best in Hyrule so far.

(The Sheikah researcher has a wife and a child, which given Purah's apparent chastity he hadn't expected; but Link has to keep reminding himself he doesn't know these people not anymore. Maybe a hundred years ago Robbie denounced the mere concept of settling down and maybe Purah was living her life seducing the kingdom. He's too confused over how Impa has a granddaughter and no partner or children in sight but decides that it is not his place to bring it up or look into. )

* * *

* * *

Akkala is a stepping stone in his journey, he discovers, and Link makes quick work of getting through everything that he needs to before heading towards the endless rainstorms of the Lanayru reigion. Epona refuses to stay when the wizzirobes turn up and scurries to relative safety leaving him stranded in the midst of electricity enemies holding nothing but what the slate calls a rusted broadsword and a shield that he'd found in a cave and kept because he liked how it shined at night.

The fight takes a turn for the worst from the offset when he's struck with what his mind recalls absently as magical lightning that causes him to drop his weapons and convulse for a few seconds before tumbling backwards. Giggling and pin drops sound over the heavy rain and Link finds himself picking up the weapons again regardless, all he has is a moblin arm and he isn't keen on seeing if that will make things worse or better.

Eventually he falls into the pattern of dodging the attack and then striking with his weapons before the creature can create another attack. Those precious few seconds are the only time he can touch it without causing more spiderweb-like marks from crawling up his already marked skin. His sword hand is slightly numb by the time he lands the finishing blow and the blow is delivered with what Link can only say is a battle cry that he did not realise he was capable of making.

It is something that comes deep from his chest, bone deep and _aching_ as he yells something he's sure is a word but not one that he can remember the meaning of. All Link knows is that it is the battle cry of a warrior, a signifying noise for all to know that the foes have been vanquished and that at the end of it all he is the one left standing. It is of course, after he has damaged his rusted sword and shattered the moblin arm that something else approaches him; something vastly taller, far more intimidating.

He expects the familiar call of instinct to swell up, to call him to fight the unknown monster like it has every time he's approached something or something has approached him. 

But nothing happens.

If anything he suddenly feels much calmer, the parts of him that remember (and guard what they remember jealously) know that whatever this thing is is not immediately a threat... he hopes. Purah commented that he didn't have much 'self-preservation' but never really went on to explain what exactly it was, he just hopes this isn't a moment where it's failing him.

"Hylian friend!" Turning more towards the thing he sees it stop as it gets a better look at him and belatedly he realises his cloak had fallen down during the fight. He's quick to pull the hood up to cover his scarred face but the damage has been done. "...Gerudo friend? I apologise, it's rather late and with all this rain it's impossible to see anyone clearly!" The thing tries to give a smooth recovery but Link figures that whatever slip up they think they've made is not something a simple explanation of the rain can cover up. 

To be completely honest Link doesn't think either of those are right so he doesn't find it particularly offensive because he doesn't... he doesn't know what he is. But he's starting to find that he isn't Hylian and he isn't Gerudo. At the very least, Ayaz made it clear that there are _no_ male Gerudo.

"Neither." There's no real choice but to correct the... Zora? That must be the right name- it has to be. He offers no other explanation as to what he 'is' even when he's given a wondering look, he realises belatedly that he has spoken and cringes at his voice. He... dislikes how it sounds. The words don't truly sound right, the letters feel heavy in his mouth nothing like the weightlessness he gets from practicing a language only he can seem to speak. He offers nothing else to the Zora, just watches them (him?)

"Regardless! I am in need of assistance! I saw your fight with those monsters just then and I was wondering if you'd be willing to offer your aid!"

His hands are empty of weapons and all he has to his name is the Sheikah slate, the clothes on his back, a damaged bow (plus thirteen revered and venerated arrows that he had managed to keep in good condition since leaving Kakiriko village some time ago) and a rusted sword plus his shield that is more dented than it had previously been. Link doesn't think he is the kind of person one asks for aid, especially after what a sight he must have made of himself fighting the damned monsters; this Zora must be desperate.

He had no clear direction in the Lanayru region anyway, fighting this Zora's adversary may be beneficial; hopefully there will be a monetary or armoury reward at the end of it. Even just a place with a bed to rest his head would be enough, he hadn't been able to afford weaponry _and_ a night at the Kakiriko inn and with Hanato being the way it is, he hasn't put his head to a pillow since Akkala and it's been almost a week since then and the brief luxury has spoiled him.

Link isn't about to go fighting just about anything though; he'd learnt his lesson when that damn hag in Hanato asked him to go climb mount Lanayru to get some beast's scale and he'd met a god. Of course, the Hylian woman had said he'd merely met a dragon because 'didn't he know the only god that graced Hyrule with it's presence anymore was the Goddess Hylia' and it had taken lots of self control to not outright sneer 'No, you see I was dead for the past century or so and have no memories so please enlighten me.' 

Never again would he make the mistake of galivanting where ever some stranger with a so-called noble cause asked him to. Meeting one god was enough (and no matter what that woman said, that _thing_ on the mountain had been a god. It's eyes were too old, too wise and they had made Link feel far too small to be anything but a deity. Not to mention that feeling in his bones that had lead him towards everything he'd learnt about himself so far agreed with the sentiment. No more gods of the mountains.

"You see, the Zora's domain is facing a pressing issue and, due to Zora's weakness to lightning, we are not particularly equipped to deal with it! That would be where you would come in; if you agree I only ask that you make your way to the domain on foot. I'm afraid the waters are too harsh for me to carry you on my back."

Following the fin (claw?) to the path he had been making his way towards he saw more than one monster laying in wait, their perfect camouflage disrupted by how the rain acted upon hitting them, no puddles formed where they should. The Zora said lightning, meaning that beasts similar to what he had just fought would be blocking this indeterminately long path. He was low on supplies though and he'd made it this far, surely he could just sneak past and run away from monsters if he needed to...

"So, will you do it friend?"

The face that looked down at him was so full of hope that Link found only slight hesitation, that was left in the metaphorical dust completely though when the Zora continued and suddenly Link was not stood in the rain in the middle of nowhere looking up at a Zora twice his height but rather someone made of marble and luminous material facing a smaller Zora who was smiling sheepishly at him.

_"Oh that's wonderful! ** ~~Link~~** you never do cease to amaze me. A white Lynal?" She smiled, sharp teeth greeting him and Link couldn't help but return the gesture even if it was smaller and less obvious than his companions, "I forgot they had them in Faron. That was your warrior's test wasn't it? Oh it is such a shame that non-Zonai are not allowed to attend. I would have loved to watch you."_

_" **Big sister! Big sister!** " A smaller Zora, red with so many glowing spots it was impossible to not know he was a pup tumbled in from the pools behind where the female Zora was standing, " **Mipha, come look at this- ack!** "_

_The pup tripped over his tail fin and he and Mipha rushed forward to steady the child at the same time, "Sidon!"_

"Friend! Are you quite alright?!"

Blinking back into reality Link felt what must have been a scream building up in his throat. He didn't understand what that was, was it a memory? Did meeting this Zora trigger it?

"um..."

"I'll do it." That place he was in in his memory had to be the Zora's Domain. Maybe if he went there he'd meet more people, recover more memories... Something in him told him that Zora's lived longer than other races so surely it was a possibility that he might see Mipha. Maybe she could tell him more about himself... she'd said Zonai like they were separate to others, 'non-Zonai are not allowed to attend' so did that make him Zonai? He would tuck that question away until the next time he saw Impa; there was nothing good to come from using a label he did not understand. For all he knew it could perhaps be a rank he had outgrown when he had become the Princess' guard. 

"Fantastic!"

Fins wave about in excited gestures and Link starts digging through what remains of the monsters at his feet as the Zora gives him the basic overview of what he will experience on his journey to the Domain. He finds another shield and slides it onto his arm, his dented one already strapped to his back; a sword this time not broken or rusted is slipped into the guard on his back and the rod the stupid sprite was flailing about is sitting in a pile of dusty robes and he picks it up, feeling a rush through his veins from the point of contact up and up until his shoulder where he knows there's a scar and nothing more. He thinks distantly, that he should be worried about that but he decides to put it aside.

"I will see you at the Domain then!"

-*-

No matter how much his memory pulls him, Link is never letting a stranger request his aid again.

He had to fight more of the imps with lightning rods, however they did not appreciate being struck with their own element which Link took great satisfaction in. He has also learnt _not_ to stand in puddles whilst summoning lightning and electricity and from the bemused look the Zora (who had been checking up on him on occasion throughout the insufferably long journey) had given him at the words he assumes it's something most people know. Most people don't know nothing about themselves though so Link gives himself a free pass this time around.

However his companion had expressed that he was fairing remarkably well for electrocuting himself and Link could only think that for all that the element had hurt, it seemed to do much more damage to every other living thing than it did him. His skin just seemed thicker, less likely to take the full brunt unless having the rods struck right against his skin like the initial encounter with the dreaded imps had involved.

Upon finally reaching the Domain, or rather the gate to the bridge Link found himself falling short once more as another memory slammed into him with little to no warning.

_"Honestly, as the knight of destiny you would think you could at least spear fish - we Rito hardly ever use spears and yet I am more proficient than you at fishing with one... truly astounding that we are leaving Hyrule in your hands." A Rito baring navy feathers and sharp green eyes looked at him sideways as they walked up from Lake Lanayru towards the Domain, pitifully small bags of fish slung over their shoulders._

_Bringing his hands up, having attached his haul to his sword belt, Link found himself smirking, **"And yet my haul is bigger than yours. Faron Zonai don't spear fish anyway, if you lose the spear and it goes over the waterfalls nobody will give you another. Nets are safer there anyway."**_

_His companion hummed and hah-ed for a few seconds before sighing, turning his beak up at him in a haughty display of something, "I suppose that's fair; although I still think it's a skill you should know. Let us just hope that you don't have to beat Ganon in a fishing contest because if so I'm afraid we're all forsaken." There was a kindness to the jab and Link couldn't stop the small laugh that left him._

_**"Still caught more than you."**_

_The Rito grumbled, knocking shoulders with him and the unexpected movement had Link stumbling a few steps forward unable to control his laughter now more than ever, "Keep laughing and I'll kick you off the side of Vah Ruta!"_

_"Now, now, Revali" Turning his head up Link felt his smile widen ever so slightly as Mipha made her way over to them, clearly having just crossed the bridge, "I do believe I never gave permission for kicking fellow Champions off of my divine beast."_

_"Princess, when I explain myself you **will** understand-"_

Then it was over, and Link was standing in the rain; bleeding, tired and alone with only the faintest memories of people he thinks might have been his friends.

Making his way across the bridge was easier, with another memory to Mipha's name. Motivation in the form of anticipation made each step feel lighter and when the guard at the end of the bridge stopped him he couldn't even find it in himself to _care_ until they spoke again, " _Link?_ Is that you! We all thought you were dead!"

-*-

Mipha's dead.

It... hurts.

Probably a lot more than the Zora royal council were expecting it to, because they'd all backed up and gasped when he'd burst into tears as the King told him. Mipha, who he only has two memories of, but who he knows liked to tease her friends and wanted to be there and support him at something that was clearly important to him. Mipha, who from the two times he remembers seeing her smile had made it seem like she could light up a room with it alone. Mipha, who apparently loved him and he doesn't know if he loved her the same way but he knows he loved her and so he doesn't feel ashamed for crying - because he knows nothing of this world; nothing but the fact that _so many_ people hate him, _so many_ people blame him for deaths that he doesn't know if he could have prevented and that he is learning nothing but grief and anger in this Hyrule and not even finding it within himself to feel bad that he wonders if it deserves to be saved.

Does a place that is so quick to judge, so quick to _hate_ and push the pain and burden onto others... is that really the kind of place that deserves saving?

But he's not really saving _**Hyrule.**_ That isn't his job.

Link's job is to save Princess Zelda, not her destroyed kingdom.

_"I've never seen a Zonai cry before, I thought they weren't able to."_

One of the advisors voices is louder than they intended it to be and Link manages to narrow his eyes at the slouching Zora, and they shudder under it. He must look somewhat scary with a snarl pulling at his lips and narrowed eyes obscured partially by the shadow of his hood. His hands shake too much from where they're clutching at the fabric of his cloak to sign any response so he pushes down his discomfort, "Someone that I loved died, did you expect me to not to mourn!?"

Sidon - _he's too tall it hurts to put the image of the baby Zora in his singular memory with the hulking Prince behind him-_ places a clawed hand on his shoulder, "My friend you are allowed to mourn - if your memory is lacking and you are suddenly learning of this immense loss it is understandable."

"So you remember her then?" The King sounds hopeful, and it hurts because it is how he felt mere minutes ago, but he pulls himself onto his feet steady as he could possibly be right now and nods unwilling to share that he does not remember more than two instances of her existence, "Are you still willing to help the Domain? Or would you prefer having time to mourn?"

"Now." It's a somewhat stilted response, but his throat his closing up with the need to _sob_ and he has already let tears fall before these unsympathetic elders he will not let them have anymore of his voice than they have already heard, "Statue first. Then Ruta."

That statue had left him internally ecstatic for a few short seconds that he had caught glance of before Bazz had escorted him and Sidon up to the throne room. He had assumed it was her mother, a look alike or maybe a memory in honour of a living legend, not a memorial for the dead. The King makes no objection and so he turns and slinks off to Mipha's statue to stand before the dead eyes of luminous stone.

A statue does not do the Princess justice and upon getting a proper look at it the first thing Link finds himself thinking is that they haven't captured her smile correctly - this of course comes from the part of him that knows Mipha, the part of him that refuses to share anything other than drips of memory. He takes it for what it is though, and forces himself to envision the smile Mipha had given him when Revali (and who was Revali? Was he another pilot of the divine beasts? Or a shared companion between himself and Mipha?) had threatened to kick him off of Vah Ruta. Sidon joins him at some point in his staring, not breaking the silence for some sort of respect Link assumes.

Eventually he turns away, unthinkingly bringing three fingers on his sword arm and pressing them to his heart, then his mouth, his heart again before he cups his other hand over the three fingers and curls them to his palm. Once the action is complete he feels lost, he doesn't know why he just did what he did but he knows that it's like saying goodbye in some way. He chalks it up to something connected with the 'Zonai'.

"I had wished that I would never have to see you do that again," The Prince is keeping a respectful distance and Link tries his hardest to not let it show that he does not remember the meaning behind his own actions, "I think the last time I saw you do that was at my mothers funeral. You taught Mipha and I how to do it; you said - you said it was wishing a spirit well in the afterlife..." The hesitation tells him that Sidon had perhaps been hoping against hope that his sister would be alive, Link thinks that it was foolish to hope but he says nothing because he's just as guilty of being a hopeful fool, "I apologize for not recognizing you earlier old friend."

Link shrugs and Sidon chuckles, seemingly not finding his lacking response offensive. "Father... instructed that I give you this, after you left, I understand that it may be painful but... but my dear sister would have wanted you to have it."

Glancing over at the offered package he finds his mouth dries up at the sight of the armour resting there, the jealous memory hoarding part of himself knows what that is and it is sharing with him.

"I can't." **_He can't. Link can't wear the betrothal gift from a dead woman when he doesn't even know if he loved her that way. He can't,_** "No. I can't."

"I... I understand. But please, even if you don't wear it at least take it with you."

Sidon doesn't understand, he's simply in the position of giving away his sisters betrothal armour - he is not the recipient who doesn't even know which hand is his dominant one. But at the same time he might understand how wrong all this is. Because, at the end of the day he's also handing a dead woman's love over to a dead man.


	2. Vah Ruta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING FOR GORE THIS CHAPTER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING FOR GORE THIS CHAPTER
> 
> IF YOU WANT TO SKIP IT, DON'T READ THE SECOND SECTION AFTER THESE : -*-  
> AND START AGAIN AT THE LINE: There are well over twenty shock arrows to collect at the mountains peak.

They need shock arrows, and it's up to Link to go collect them. The gifted armour weighs him down as he trudges up the mountain, one of the Zora advisors (Muzu he barely recalls) had said he might as well complete his disregard for the Zora's feelings and wear Mipha's armour to ride up the waterfalls. Link had refused and did not regret it, even if he was facing stupid keese and more keese and ridiculous amounts of Bobkolins and Moblins. The look on the old Zora's face when he'd shouldered his shield and sword, after scraping together enough items to pay for for arrows, was more than worth it.

Muzu had not hidden his disdain, had not been quite about the fact it's _his fault_ Mipha is dead, and Link finds it harder and harder to want to help the domain ( _to help Hyrule_ ) because why should he let these people have help when they act this way. It is only the brief memory of Zelda's desperate plea for him to awaken and save Hyrule that keeps his feet in the right direction. Hyrule is not his home; the ground beneath his very feet seems to tell him this, the looks and words of the continents people surely reiterate it enough for him to not miss the message. Zelda has been fighting alone for a century though, and that keeps him moving; saving Zelda frees him of responsibility and that makes him pick up speed.

He wonders if he saw all of this a century ago - or was there something tying him back? Keeping him blind or mute to the injustice and hatred burning under the surface. Maybe Hyrule was a better place a hundred years ago; maybe it wasn't. Link holds disdain for the place he is apparently sworn to serve and protect and he cannot help but think that an oath sworn to a dead man is not much of an oath anymore. Whatever it is that kept him in service to Hyrule will be gone once Zelda is free.

Link isn't quite sure what will come after that, but it is something he will decide if he lives through Zelda's rescue.

After all, he's a dead man he can't have that long of a timer.

-*-

The Lynel is a savage thing.

It's hunkering form towers above him and drool drips from between it's vicious fangs, nose flaring with it's angry shuddering breath once it's eyes lock onto him and when it roars Link follows instinct and _howls_ back at it. His noise is primal, bone deep once more. It makes the Lynel pause if even for a half a second and a hoof kicks at the earth beneath it in agitation before it roars again, to which Link replies; this time there is no more waiting and instead the beast charges forward and he races forward to meet it his own teeth bared in a snarling threat.

Unlike with his previous fights against monsters, where he had fumbled and fought between his lack of knowledge and muscle memory, his body knows what to do and he lets muscle memory take over. 

Sliding beneath the behemoth of a sword coming down for his head, he drops to his knees, sliding in the muddy earth until he's right next to it's chest and he jabs his weapon into the things exposed chest and once the metal is in there he drags _down_ and does not stop until there is blood dripping on him and the monster is rearing back trying to smash him with it's hooves, then, and only then, does he move back - rolling out onto from under the beast, bloodied mud hitting his face from where hooves had hit the ground where his head had been moments before; his sword is drenched, leaving a trail of blood in it's wake.

The injury makes it back off a few more meters and Link finds himself prowling in wide arcs near the beast.

A few more blows are exchanged between them, each a closer and closer call as Link discovers that the Sheikah slate's stasis rune cannot stop the Lynel. He had been hoping it would work, and that plan had conflicted with what his muscle memory told him to do, but he had decided to follow his plan initially to save himself possible pain. All it had so far accomplished was leaving him a hairs breath away from injury and death whilst leaving little more than scratches on the beast.

Link finds himself growling as he and the Lynel circle each other, upper lip curling back as the pain and rush of the fight steal him back to the way his body wants to fight.

When they next attack battle cries are exchanged once more, but he isn't as lucky and the behemoth of a sword is raised above his head and comes down on his body just as he feints to the right, the blade makes brief contact with his skin, not enough to loose him a limb but it causes blinding pain to shoot through his body and makes him loose his balance (maintaining which had already been a practice in pain with the rain coming down harder and harder as the fight progresses.) With his lost balance his next few marks look more like score marks on the Lynel's flank but they make the creature arch away, and it gives him time to move, feet digging into the mud as he flings himself across the clearing and behind one of the giant boulders that obstruct it. All he'd needed to do was sneak around and grab as many shock arrows as he could - but there's no way that he can accomplish that now (if there ever was a chance to begin with) not with him bleeding all over the beasts territory. But running is an ever worse option, if he were to flee now he'd lead the thing right into the heart of the Domain. Lynel's are predators and a predator would much prefer to eat the prey it's hurt than hunt something healthy.

All of the Zora are conductive, leading the Lynel there intentionally or not would result in the death of the entire domain. The elders would have a reason to hate him then.

For half a moment he contemplates going there, luring it down the mountain to wreak havoc purely from spite, but he relents the thought when the faces of the children who he saw playing in front of Mipha's statue crop into his mind - they had done nothing to deserve something like that and neither had any of the other children in the Domain, he further abandons the idea when he thinks of how Sidon had stood for him when everyone who he had ever immensely respected had pointed the finger. Could he really stand the sight of one of the only people who had been kind to him, falling before his eyes for his own petty 'vengeance'?

And finally the thought is completely abandoned when he thinks of what Mipha would say to him if he were to die after letting the Domain fall to the Lynel.

Horror, despair and disgust mar the imagined Mipha's face and he can perfectly envision how she would bare her teeth at him, how her claws would curl around her trident as she skewered him for ever purposely letting her people die, for letting her father and brother die. She would reap justice that extended far beyond the reaches of the divine if he ever did something like that with the intention of the Domain falling, that he is sure of.

So he realigns his hatred and frustration onto the bastard of a creature before him. It doesn't roar this time, hunching closer into itself to try and protect where Link can see what looks like the beginning of an internal organ slipping out. Snarling he points his sword at the beast and it seemingly understands the threat because it raises it's own weapon in return.

One of it's hands (paws? claws?) keeps close to the wound, shield abandoned by this point in favour of overwhelming speed and power.

Link wonders how well the beasts can plan a fight, he wonders where they get their weaponry from. Something tells him he had gotten the answers to that once but it's just another thing he's forgotten at this point.

They clash and once more Link aims low, sliding in just like he did with the first blow (there's a whistling noise as the Lynel's sword misses his face by a hairs breath) but he switches his weapons mid slide, taking one of the electrical rods and when he is underneath he clenches his teeth and _wrenches_ the organ _out._ He has to dig his hand _inside_ the wound to get a proper grip and there is a sickening tearing sound as he makes the injury bigger and then when he's up to his elbow there's a _squelch._ When he pulls and tugs his arm out with another squelch his tunic is red.

It's a wet disgusting sound but he continues, gritting and baring his teeth all the while as he keeps a hold of it as he moves away from the Lynel's deadly hooves.

 _It screams_ as even more of itself is dragged out by his hands and Link feels nothing as his blood soaked hand twists the organ even more to get a better grip. The rain makes it even harder to keep a grip on anything and so he _tugs_ again and it doesn't stop thrashing or screaming and Link's feet finally give out under him and he goes flying, organ tight in his hand still even as his back makes contact with another boulder. 

The Lynel is slowing now, making it's way to him in some half hearted attempt at a gallop. It never makes it to him.

Remembering Sidon's words about conduction he lets one of his feet slide down the wet surface of the boulder, unsure if it's soaked with the rain or blood, and lets his foot slide into an increasingly widening puddle of water before bringing the rod up above his head he howling one last time, anticipating the pain he's about to inflict upon himself, and slams the electrified head of the rod to the organ in his hand, watching the lightning flicker along the cord of intestine and into the Lynel, it screams again and he thinks he joins in, but it falls eventually, a spasming heap on the floor in a quickly reddening puddle and he drops his hold and runs forward. It isn't dead yet, but _almost._

A hoof kicks out at him lamely as he runs forward simply jumping over it and landing in front of the fallen creatures face. His knees give out under him and the Lynel whines as it realises that this is it, this is the end. It bares it's teeth one last time and Link returns the gesture before closing his eyes and levelling the head of the rod at the beasts face. One last whine is issued before he summons its power. Before he issues the finishing blow though he mutters words in a language only he knows: "Return to the spirits from whence you came, and let your journey be as swift as your passing."

He does not see what becomes of the face, but he feels what is left of it splatter against his own.

It's an indefinite amount of time he spends, kneeling in front of the Lynel's corpse, but the rain grows heavier until he's sure there's a river of blood down the side of the mountain to prove his victory.

-*-

There are well over twenty shock arrows to collect at the mountains peak. 

His arm is still bleeding, sluggishly and darkening what little blue there is left visible on his tunic, and only when he's gotten all the arrows he needs - around forty-five rather than the initial twenty required- does he turn back to the Lynel. Unlike other monsters he's fought it's body hasn't disappeared into purple fog leaving only the spoils of war behind, no. This time the beasts crumpled form remains and Link finds himself making quick work of taking what is useful from it, taking the knife he uses for cooking out of the pack he had abandoned at the mouth of the Lynel's territory and returning to get his spoils with the pack within arms reach; horns, hooves, a few guts the slate tells him will enhance his elixirs and finally he takes the monsters weapons for himself.

Testing out the blade he nearly regrets it when his injured arm cannot hold the weight of the weapon and he nearly loses half of his foot. 

Not intending to loose any body parts anytime soon he decides to put the sword and shield in the slate, slipping his cooking knife in as well knowing that when he calls on it it will be as clean as it was before he started this endeavour. His eyes settle onto the electrical rod, still left in the mud where he'd dropped it after killing the beast. He can't help but track a rivet of blood as it makes a decline down the side of the magical orb and hits the ground. Leaving it atop the mountain when it was still in perfect working order is stupid, especially when the next blood moon should only be in a few days, the less electrical items the Lynel has once it reawakens the better.

Shatterback point is a bit higher up from where he is, the once worn path clear to him even through the heavy downpour and Link knows that he should make his way there, he should go and make his way back to the Domain and stop Vah Ruta from trying to drown all of Hyrule. But he doesn't.

No, he stares at the body he's left in the rain and he falls into the increasingly familiar sensation of a memory.

_"Now, ~~ **Link**~~ when it comes to killing a beast there is one thing you must always remember, if the beast is not for food then you must bury it. Do you know why me must always bury something if it is not to be eaten?"_

_He looks up at the older hunter, a lean older woman who's exposed arms are strong and covered in scars borne from encounters from animals, his favourite time is always listening to the big sister regaling the rest of the village children with her encounters with Faron and Lanayru's wildlife._

_"Because you can't take from the spirits without giving something back."_

_"Exactly."_

_His eyes jump back to the dead Lynel at their feet, killed swiftly and painlessly by an arrow between the eyes, Mali hands him a piece of flint from the bag hanging from her belt, "We burn the bones because ash enriches the earth in small parts but also, because the fire lights the way for the fetching spirits. Now, help me build the fire."_

_"Return to the spirits from whence you came, and let your journey be as swift as your passing."_

The first sensation that greets him when he returns to himself is rain, the smell of blood is next and then finally pain. All three ground him to the world around him and he looks down at the beast that he had killed, not for food but for necessity and life and decides to make a pyre. It's what he's supposed to do. He has to sacrifice a few bits of canvas to make a shelter for the flames but by the time he's heading to the tip of Shatterback point the Lynel is ablaze. "Return to the spirits from whence you came, and let your journey be as swift as your passing."

-*-

He's covered in the gore of his fight, he's injured and he supposes that Sidon had not expected a bloodied feral warrior to drop from the sky because the Zora's reaction to his landing is to jump back, hands reaching for a weapon that isn't there. His eyes are unfocused for a short time and then he seems to recognize who he is, " ~~ _ **Link**_~~?"

"It's dead." is all he offers as explanation.

The rain almost drowns him out but the awe and then fear that crosses the Prince's face assures him that he was heard, "-Dead!? You were only supposed to get the arrows, you need medical attention-"

Shaking his head he walks to the end of the pier, pulling his pack off his back, tying it down with what's left of the scraps of canvas that had been a ruined tent before today. He pulls out his arrows, arranges his quiver and slings his bow onto his back. "Friend I cannot let you go fight Ruta in your current state - besides how are you supposed to climb the damned things waterfalls!? You won't even ware Mipha's armour!"

Desperation and anger tinge those last words and it riles him that it seems he must desecrate Mipha's love to save the Zora and Hyrule and it adds wood to the fire that is his frustration towards Hyrule but no, Link refuses to. He'll find another way, the Zora armour is _not_ required.

"I'll swim to Ruta if I have to."

He maintains Sidon's gaze and the Prince's eyes flash through a hundred feelings each one something Link would have understood a one point, each one something the old Link might have emphasised with at one point in existence but that Link died a hundred years ago and all Link wants now is to free Ruta from whatever chains the beast to it's blight and he wants his freedom. The sooner Link saves Ruta, the quicker he can save Zelda and the sooner Link can be free of Hyrule and it's cruel goddess.

Absently he wonders what a sight he must be, covered in the blood of a Lynel and his own blood, clothes ripped, muddy and red rather than the sky blue Impa said was a sign of the royal family. He hates blue, hates the tunic that binds him but it is the only other clothes baring the ones he woke in in the shrine. When he can he will be rid of this tunic, of the colour blue but that is not for a time yet; that will have to wait until Sidon decides whether to dally on a subject that has no moral conclusion or to fight along side him. Link is not lying, he'll swim to the divine beast if he needs to, he'll climb a mountain and paraglide around the top of it and fight it that may if needs must. He refuses to stand on the pier much longer. Not when he is inching closer and closer to freedom.

Mipha died in that beast, Ganon _killed_ her and he now has two reasons to fight the beast strangling Hyrule castle. Sidon will not stop him from avenging his friend no matter if he is still mourning or not Link will not stand to be stopped now, on the cusp of progress.

Hyrule is _filled_ with those that hate him, one more person is not going to harm him.

"You wouldn't." It's almost desperate enough to be a plea, "It's too risky; Ruta would kill you in seconds-"

"I've died before _Prince_ , death is not something I fear." He snarls, the Prince takes a single step backwards before catching himself, "I am performing my duty. So help, or _move._ "

Silence washes over them and then, quietly a question is asked, "How will you get up the waterfalls without the armour...?"

* * *

* * *

The Battle for Vah Ruta is long and arduious, he manages to propel himself up the height of the beast by throwing the slate's bombs beneath him and activating them as they hit the water, using his paraglider to ride the updraft. And then, having to fight the infected guardians and the malice... all in all the battle for Vah Ruta leaves him seething with rage and even more motivation to slice Calamity Ganon in two on his sword.

Hearing Mipha's voice in his head though, that nearly makes his knees crumple, the hitch in the ghosts breathing when he has to grasp at the control panel not to go tumbling to the floor says that wherever she is watching over from she can see him, " ~~ ** _Link_**~~ _what's wrong - oh no you're injured!_ "

For the second time that day he slides to his knees, hands clutching his cloak as tears slip free. 

Mipha is here, she's _dead_ but he can feel her presence in his head and that is enough for now. His hands tremble around the material of his cloak and he wants to say so much, to ask her a million questions but he _can't_ because he needs to free the divine beast, he needs to save live to see tomorrow, he needs to free the other beasts, he needs to - he needs to - there is never an ending to the 'he needs to' but maybe eventually there will be. If Link still has a pulse at that point is up for debate and he doesn't care.

Hyrule can burn after Zelda is saved for all he cares.

Everyone he has presumably ever cared for is dead or on the verge of dying; what is there left for here but hatred and more pain? Link has learnt more about himself killing Lynels and monsters this past day than he has in the weeks since he awoke and at this point he is sick and tired of existing. All he knows is that his name is Link, that he is from Faron and that he is a Zonai.

But he does not know why ~~_**Link**_~~ is different to _Link_ or what Faron looks like, feels like under his bare feet or his ungloved hands, he doesn't know what it means to be Zonai bar a few misshapen thoughts and presumptions from memories scattered here and there. What is there for him in a world where all he knew about himself was that he had died for a woman he no longer knew and that his only purpose for breathing was to free her, to drop Hyrule in her lap to let it fester and suck her dry.

Link is getting distracted.

He is mourning his dear friend and finally he can force himself to push the ears back because now is not the time for mourning. Now is the time for avenging and whatever killed Mipha, whatever still prowls the bowls of the divine beast will meet it's end at his blade.

-*-

Waterblight Ganon rises from the malice with a bone rattling screech and it makes him see red.

This is the thing that killed Mipha, this thing took away a life he realises he cherished, a life he cannot remember but mourns nevertheless. **_THIS THING KILLED MIPHA._**

Roaring back is something he is apparently going to be doing from now on, and just like with the Lynel it is primal his response but he hopes that his pain is clear in it, he hopes most of all thought that each and _every_ slash, arrow and scream he aims at the blight will send his promise to Ganon. He hopes that every injury he levels against the beast, every time he draws it's festering burning blood that somewhere half way across the continent that Calamity Ganon _shakes_ knowing that when he faces it he will bring this level of fury and so much more.

He hopes that Calamity Ganon feels the pain of it's blights, he sincerely hopes and prays to spirits he can't remember that the fear and desperation the blight will experience is palpable to it's master. He wants it to be a warning; he wants every attack to be a phantom pain on the original entity's skin, he wants it to be a promise of what he will do and more.

Link will not falter in this fight, not once. Because he is going to ensure one way or another that there are consequences for the calamity. Impa said Ganondorf gave up reincarnation for the form of the calamity and Link doesn't care because he's going to make the beast wish it hadn't just so it has the option to run from him.

The Blight thrusts it's spear forward, Sheikah blue flashing past his face as he dodges to the side, and he snarls before throwing himself closer.

Pain, all he wants to cause this Blight is pain.

His sword is not all that powerful, but the Lynel's blade might be and no matter if he cannot hold it properly with his injured arm. He is going to fight till nothing of him is left if he needs to.

-*-

He nearly drowns in the second stage of the fight with the blight, but he ends it with knocking the dastardly thing onto it's back, scrambling up the amalgamation of malice and stone and slamming his blade into its eye from above. It screams, thrashing above him but by the time it's hands go to hit him, to knock him away, it's nothing but an act in futility. The Blight is dead by the time it meets it's mark and it is incorporeal strands that pass through him by that point, and he is left standing on a husk of stone.

No prayer leaves him now, no words or motions for resting spirits. He hopes the spirits have no mercy on this piece of Ganon; Link hopes they make it _hurt._

 _"Look at you... my dearest ~~ **Link**~~." _His head snaps towards the voice any and all fight leaving him as he watches _Mipha_ walk towards him. Her feet make ripples on the water and he could almost fool himself into thinking she was alive, revived by whatever miracle had brought him back, if it were not for the turquoise flames that lick at her heels, that curl around her form like dancing spirits, guardians to their mistress, she smiles and it hurts, _"It's been so long... won't you come here?"_

Metal clattering against stone and water is heard before he's tripping over his own feet and bloodied clothes to meet her halfway and despite the obvious signs she is dead when he wraps his arms around her she is touchable and warm.

There are no more tears left to cry today, not when he thinks he's cried more than he ever had before, _"Oh how I have missed holding you in my arms. We must have words though,"_ Mipha pulls his face back from where it had nested in her ghostly shoulder and her webbed hands frame his face. Her smile is so kind and warm that it hurts all the more and despite his previous statement on tears he feels them build up in the corners of his eyes, _"Really, ~~ **Link**~~ , firing arrows at Ruta. You could have asked you know."_

She's laughing as she speaks and the hands on his face tremble and so Link brings his own to cup over hers and presses his forehead to her crest.

There they stand, holding onto each other and crying. And Link can almost forget the pain and blood; can almost forget that this warmth and touch will be gone soon. 

For now, for now and as long as the spirits will let this last, he closes his eyes and tightens his hands around Mipha's trying to keep her close and perhaps trick the world into letting her live once more because Mipha is much kinder than he is, and he knows she would be a much better hero.

_"It's been ever so lonely ~~ **Link**~~ I had almost given up hope but... thank you my most cherished friend."_

Eventually he peels his eyes open, meeting ghostly ones that are somehow still more alive than the luminous stone ones back in the domain. Their hands slip away from each other and rest between them, Mipha threads one of their hands together before raising three fingers on her dominant hand and pressing them to her heart, her lips, her heart again before eventually releasing his hand and curling the three fingers in with a cupped hand. _"To a safe journey."_

Link repeats the gesture and they press their heads together once more, in the space between them he also returns the words, "To a safe journey." 

It's something unnatural that passes between them, a level of understanding he did not know was possible, but perhaps it does make sense. A promise between the dead is binding after all.


	3. Cross Continent

Mipha's last words are a joke to not leave Revali waiting, _'lest his tail feathers become too ruffled.'_

With her, his old friend takes a sizeable chunk of what he has come to call himself. It is only then that he realises he is building himself up upon other people.

Despite wishing he could crumble to dust and spend the rest of time holding Mipha close to ensure that she is never hurt again (because she ( ~~ _they_~~ ) might be dead but that does not mean that she cannot be harmed) but his wish is childish - selfish. Link is not a hero, not in the way that _Hyrule_ needs, and so even if he could have his wish it would be futile and end only in tragedy.

Nevertheless they stand together, unspoken promises binding them, for a few more moments before they pull away and Link feels his shoulders grow heavier than they were before he started the fight for Ruta but perhaps that's to be expected, he was less himself then. The Link who had not set foot in Lanayru in a century and the one who bites his tongue till blood runs down his chin as he watches Mipha's spirit flake away like ash are not the same; just as the Link who finally looses his battle to remain quite as his dear friend disappears forever right in front of his eyes, and lets out a scream that ripples the water that bounces around Vah Ruta' concave chest and echoes back at him in mockery, are not the same.

His jaw feels like it's unhinging as he screams, his bloodied hands clenched into fists at his sides as he curses everything living in Hyrule, and as he curses the continents supposed Goddess he wipes the blood from his mouth telling the absent deity that his blood will not be spilt for her ever again - he died for her and her nation once and it got him nowhere but a century ahead in a place of hate - hate that he feels curling around him trying to stew, held back only by the briefest kindness of the stable workers and owners, the old woman in Akalla who wants to hear of his own adventures when he's had them, of Purah, of Impa, of Robbie and his wife and every other Sheikah he has crossed paths with.

There is kindness in the darkness, light upon his skin in what feels like endless night. And it keeps the pain from overwhelming him but it is a constant battle that he fears one day he will eventually lose.

Worst of all he is unsure if when that day comes he will even be able to regret losing; how many deaths must he confront before then he wonders - one? two? Will it be when he has eventually faced all the champions spirits that he looses himself? Will it be when he has saved Zelda from Ganon's clutches? Perhaps.

The gifts left for him are scathing though, the brief warmth in his hollow chest as Mipha's Grace crosses over to him and reluctantly binds itself to him as it's temporary master is false in it's kindness and the trident that settles in the water in front of him doesn't attempt to hide it's distaste. Metal cannot burn, not when it is old and has not seen forge or temperature in over a century. It is incomprehensible.

Once he's picked up the weapon he's enveloped in the blue light he's come to associate with the ancient Sheikah technology and wonders why it is not the turquoise flames that take him to his new destination, before remembering rather abruptly - feet meeting wet stone in the shrine at the centre of the domain, silver back crabs scuttling away into their crevices- that he is not dead in the ways that matter. His body still moves, still breaths and his restarted heart still beats no matter how much it shouldn't. Turquoise is a colour for the dead, not the technically living.

He stays on the platform, looking out at the domain, hidden from the Zora populations view from where he is, and he thinks about leaving the trident where it is, and teleporting to the shrine closest to the stable he boarded Epona at after the request for help from Sidon. It's the least painful option for him, leaving proof of his victory and not having to face anyone or anything else until he feels once more like he could send all his hatred to the calamity if he just attacked something hard enough.

But he doesn't.

Link doesn't just abandon the trident on the partially submerged floor because the longer he looks at the Sheikah floor covered up with water to the point where his ankles (he'd long left his shoes at the stable, only wearing them for riding anyway. He dislikes shoes, they made it harder to climb and made escapes take longer not to mention they were a waste of resources, he much preferred the wrappings Impa had taught him to wind around his feet and ankles) are underwater the more he thinks about how Mipha's trident had been on a Sheikah floor underwater for the past century and he can't do it the same diservice.

That is the only reason he walks up the steps from the shrine, trident gripped unwaveringly in his non dominant hand, injured arm finally falling as the rush of the fight leaves him. It's darker than he would have thought it'd be when he emerges into the central courtyard; the sun has long since set and it highlights to him how long he spent in Mipha's arms crying like a child, grasping to the concept of something already long gone.

Just like his memories he supposes.

Is there even a purpose in relearning them? Is there a purpose to relearning who he used to be, when the one who'd worn his skin before had followed along with Hyrule and died protecting it? Yes.

Even if his mind is at war his heart knows the answer, the more he learns of before the more he learns of people he's never met and the more he learns of something that was bigger than himself. The Zonai are important, somehow someway, and he wants to learn everything, to know all and to be everything he can be.

" ~~ ** _Link_**~~?" Bazz trips over himself as he runs across the courtyard up to him and it is only then that he realises that he must look worse than death, the royal guard calls over his shoulder to a gathering crowd of soldiers, "Someone get a healer!"

The world goes dark, but he refuses to let go of Mipha's trident.

-*-

"That- That is..."

Silence is all that seems to exist as he marches into the Zora Throne room, he's still bloody and brusied with his clothing ripped in more places than it is put together and he knows he looks undead, the shriek Bazz had given as he awoke mere seconds after passing out in the guards arms indication enough to that fact. Dorephan sits upon his throne gawping at him and Link finds it difficult to lift the trident before him, an offering to a grieving father and brother.

None of the gathered advisors comment on his apperance, nobody in the room even seems to breath as he drags his broken body forward until he's standing at the feet of the whale Zora with Mipha's trident outstretched in front of him.

"So she really is- did you... did you see her?"

He wants to say no, let the king fall into his grief knowing that his daughter is resting now, not keep him held back thinking he could have or possibly still could pass on a message... but Mipha would not be fond of him lying to her father so he breaks his heart instead. Because Link is not a hero and he is not the one Hyrule needs to save it because he is hurt and angry and still coming down from the high of killing the thing that killed Mipha (and while it no longer numbs the pain the high is what's keeping him awake. It almost feels like it's the only thing keeping him alive right now) and he should not be telling a father that their child had the opportunity to pass on a message and did not.

And perhaps Mipha would be disappointed in him if he lied to her father about him seeing her; but he believes she would find comfort in the lie he tells, "She wanted me to tell you that she loves you."

Sidon takes the trident from him, hands though shaking are reverent as they clasp it and bring the weapon closer to his chest - in the same way he imagines a child would a comfort item. "Thank you ~~_**Link**_~~ \- thank you _so much_."

There's nothing to thank him for, he's simply telling them what they want to hear.

-*-

His next destination is Rito village, and despite the fact it's half a continent away he doesn't care. His feet carry him from the domain to the stables and he pulls on his boots and starts the trek to the region of ice and snow. 

Now that Ruta has been calmed, reclaimed and stationed, Lanayru is not drowning anymore and Link can finally appreciate the wildlife that blooms around him, the trees and the wild harvestable's the symbolise that Hyrule is flourishing in it's wildest form.

Nature is unbidden to the calamity, growing and growing. Reclaiming what the Hylians had taken from it and painstakingly kept from it; now that it's fated enemies are gone or no longer care. It's obvious to see with how plants grow upon the ruins of once settlements, how tree trunks burst from the half remembered foundations of fortress, how the birds sing in the shell of what was once a town; a place their song would have been drowned out by the clattering of horse hooves, the hollering of merchants, the screaming of mothers and wives calling out after children and spouses.

The thought startles him, he does not know how he knows all that, he has never been in a Hylian settlement where there is so much life- not in this life at least.

He grips Epona's reigns tighter as he slips away into another life.

* * *

* * *

_Feet hitting the earth cause a symphony of synthetic thunder, a holler behind him makes him tuck his head closer to his chest, his hands flex around his bow and he leaps from one branch to the other weary of the hunting party below._

_Blood pumping and heart racing he resists the urge to pet the fletching of his arrow, coming to a stop at the edge of a treeline when a scream comes from beyond the tree break. He keeps close to the trunk, arrow aimed at the gap between the foliage and watches as his brothers and sisters who had travelled by foot are held at sword point by people who look so much like them but nothing like them at the same time._

_The foreign men (and it is all men he finds in confusion, where are the female warriors in this band? Are they perhaps in the opposite treeline? Or are there any at all...) yell at his siblings, and Link thinks he understands a few words, grasping at phrases he knows the big brothers and sisters have learnt from their short time on the outskirts of the other world outside of Faron - it is a treacherous journey to their Tabanathan and Akkalan and Lanayru sister tribes, too many people who would seek to harm them, too many people who wouldn't understand. Too many people who refuse to understand._

_Zonai are careful to never be seen and it is then that he recognises the insignia on the armour the men ware. Angelic wings flanking three interconnected triangles - **Triforce** something he has learnt is much older than him speaks. This part of himself understands so much more and has lived through so much more so he allows it to have judgement, to have space in his being because it is him; it is the him before and after himself.- and the mark on the back of his left hand **burns** at the sight of it, just like it does every time he goes into the spring in the centre of the citadel. Hylians - those that worship Hylia and have forsaken every other god and spirit in hope that their devotion to a single divine will offer them favour._

_Link feels his blood run cold as he sees the youngest sister raise her blade, fear forcing her body to defend itself and the knight (such an ugly title he thinks, a contract to a Hylian of higher status. Where is the honour in it? Where is the honour that being a warrior, one that protects the people, brings...) raises his sword and yells something that does not sound like a warning before bringing the blade down._

_Metal never meets skin and the shouting is silenced, the clearing falling dead as Link's arrow meets it's target. The soldier is dead, armour clanking as his body hits the floor, arrow protruding between the two points of his eyes._

_He feels sick._

_He's never taken a persons life before. But it was the nameless soldier or the youngest sister; that keeps his stomach inside of him where it belongs, but it does not absolve him of the anguish. His siblings screech, tumbling backwards away from the body and Link lets his body move him, propelling him those extra meters through the canopy until he's tumbling into the clearing, new arrow notched and pointed at then men that would dare try and hurt his siblings. A few more arrows escape the canopy behind him when the Hylians move closer to them. None of the other older brothers or sisters draw blood, their shots are mere warnings in contrast to his declaration._

_The younger hunters crowd behind him and Link finds himself a shield of ten children, a sword is pressed into his hand, a bow useless at such close quarters, a death trap in such an exposed setting when they do not know how many players the Hylian's have in play. His fingers curl around the handle of the blade, seeing the mocking curl of the soldiers lips as they take in his curved blade._

_Mali had told him once, over an ash pile of his latest test of strength, that Hylians did not make their own weapons anymore. In the beginning they had, metal works of art that could cut a squishy body in half in one clean slice they were so sharp. But then, at some point they had become arrogant, favouring other things over their blacksmithing and they had barely retained the art with most of their armoury coming from the Goron people. That, she had said while sharpening her own blade (forged by her own hands and remade over and over as she grew older and more experienced), was why the Hylian court sneered whenever they saw Zonai in the shadows with their blades. Because they had forgot what it meant to forge one's blade and no longer appreciated the soul that went into them, the part of a person that grew attached to a blade as they formed it from heated ore._

_Link had given the blade curled in his hand to one of the younger hunters in the event that they became trapped in one of their own traps. He had never expected to hold it before a group of soldiers._

_They advance and he snarls, a warning cry for all who know it. His people rarely use words in battle, the world around them is their ally; the ground beneath them the beating of their hearts, the vegetation a cloak of kindness and reprieve so it is to be expected that they would imitate their neighbours and those that they coexist with in the midst of battle. All his warning gets is a snapped word, one he understands - **SAVAGE.**_

_Zonai are not savage, they breath with the wind, move with the earth and rise with the sun. They are alive with the world and the world is alive with them; the Hylians simply survive they do not co-exist and that is why they could never understand them._

_The soldiers get closer and he summons every ounce of courage he possesses and squares his shoulders, readys his feet and slashes his blade in the closing distance between them. The back of his hand explodes in light and another Hylian word he knows is screeched, " **TRIFORCE!** "_

* * *

* * *

_Mali is their ambassador with the Hyrule royal family, and she returns to their citadel with the demand that Link appear before the court; **that** , they have promised, **will be enough to make them stop their inquisition into their sister tribes lands.**_

_The Hylian's are holding them hostage, demanding he gives himself over to a court, to a country, of people he does not fully understand for something none of them understand._

_Unlike what Mali says the Hylian's believe the Triforce is not a signifier of doom and just because the Princess has been born with it and so has Link does not mean the end is near. The Triforce is a gift from the three central goddesses' and is just that a gift; but it is also a harbinger of change. Doom and change are not synonymous but for the people of Hyrule who forsake the earth beneath their feet and the love of the spirits and gods that are not responsible for their name that does not matter. He wonders that maybe if they embraces the Triforce for the gift it is if they would face so much trouble with the Triforce of Wisdom._

_Wisdom is not what his tribe represents, that is courage and that is why he is proud to wield the Triforce because he is representing his people and what they strive for each and every day, but he knows enough to know that for Wisdom to be powerful there must be freedom. A bird cannot learn to fly if it is only ever stuck in a cage._

_'I'll go,' he tells them and there is protest because everyone knows that he has killed a Hylian and everyone knows it was just but everyone does not include the Hylian royal court who have taken any and all opportunity to hunt them for sport, 'I'll go to the court. We must have courage and hope that they'll keep their word.'_

_In his tribe Link is nobody special barring the Triforce. He is the son of a Priestess and a hunter, who's greatest feat in life besides what he cannot control with the Triforce is that people will always wink and whistle at him if he accompanies anyone to the citadel's spring because everyone knows that is where he must have been conceived to be blessed with Courage. He is not the best warrior, that title belongs to people far older than him, nor is he the most pious. Link would hesitate to say he's even the most courageous of his tribe but it is that normality that spurs him forward._

_A normal Zonai must always stand for what they believe, they must earn their paints and Link isn't even old enough for that but he knows that he must do this and perhaps that is why his mother walks to him, regal and holy, through the meeting of elders and head warriors and rests her hands upon his shoulders and smiles at him._

_(Everyone always said his mother was beautiful. Tall, and built for battle unlike her other spring maidens (his father loved to tell the story of how his mother came home from battle one day and fell into the spring on the verge of death before emerging like a spirit emissary, his mother would often chime in saying that that offer of grace was what made her decide to switch her devotion to prayer rather than through the blade) with darker skin than most of the Faron Zonai for she hailed from closer to Eldin , red hair in braids that hung behind her, covered in stones and precious stones that she had dug up herself with her sharp features, strong and defined in a way that people said would make spirits look twice.)_

_Her smile is grounded, unyielding in the moments others would expect it to waver._

_" **Courage is useless is there is nobody left to have it. Keep yourself safe, my sweetest Link, and return home to us. That will be your biggest test of courage.** "_

* * *

* * *

_"Zelda, this is Link."_

_That is not his name, not truly, it is a translation at best and a mockery at worst. The Princess' smile is strained as she surveys him, her eyes jumping to every feature that is distinctly different to the tapestry of fated heroes behind her._

~~**_Link_** ~~ _knows that he does not belong here, he does not belong in these stone hallways beneath oppressive eyes, in these tight ill suited clothing and **boots** , ~~**Link**~~ is a Zonai, and Zonai are not to be tamed. The Hyrule Court do not care, and Mali's rueful smile as he was ordered to stay and be the fated hero is burned into his mind. The dagger slipped between them - a gift from his mother and father. The blade has been forged by his fathers hands and the handle his mothers- sings from it's hidden spot on his person and it takes everything he has to not use it to slice the King's throat out._

_But he refrains._

_Princess Zelda is three years his junior and he will not kill a parent in front of a child. No matter that Link is barely sixteen years himself; he thinks it cruel enough that Hyrule's king is confining Wisdom to a disinteresting and painful journey of celestial revelation; if Hylia truly resided in the Princess then praying to effigies would do no good. He doesn't understand these people, he hates a good portion of them as well._

_"Link will be accompanying you to see Princess Mipha. I am told on Zonai authority," the lack of respect raises his hackles and he barely refrains from snarling at the 'King', "that he is familiar with the Princess." That should be the end of it, he supposes it's supposed to be but Zonai have good ears and so he doesn't miss the muttered words, "Why that blasted Zora wouldn't tell us he was in contact with the savages I'll never know."_

_From there the two royals converse and words are lost on ~~ **Link**~~ for he has never had need to learn Hylian common, not when he can use Zonai or Zoran._

_He decides then, standing against the tapestry of his past lives, that the faces looking back at him are as equally unhappy about where they have found themselves and he relishes in the thought that he is not along. He also decides, and on this he is not sure if the opinion is shared, that he hates the Hyrule royal family and that at the earliest convivence he will slit the 'King's' throat._

_The man is said to talk about fighting the Yiga, an off shoot of Sheikah (he knows them, has met a few but never in more than a passing circumstances. Sheikah are warriors themselves but they are more than happy with themselves there, they are also scholars though and seemingly never stop in their quest to gain and share knowledge) created because of his ancestors misgivings, and yet in the next breath after denouncing an enemy created by his own blood he starts along the path of repeating history._

_Is killing the King of a nation you are not apart of still called treason? Or does it have another name when you are killing the 'King' of a people who have usurped you from your own land and then denounce your existence._

_So what that the Zonai prefer the natural world in comparison to Hyrule's oppressive towering homes of thatch and stone? So what if they prefer to worship everything that has given them life rather than one goddess who supposedly walks among them? It does not make them baser, it does not make them **savages** , but if that is the title he must ware to keep his people safe then so be it._

_Zelda is someone he must protect, someone who upon completing their journey to divine revelation will have the power to free him. He is not doing any of this for Hyrule, he is doing it for Zelda- in the hopes that Zelda will help him as he will help her._

_Seeing Mipha again, is a small consolation._

_The Zora Princess has been a friend of his since he was young, for he often went with his mother on her spiritual journeys when they went through Lanayru, the Zora as a race fascinate him; their prowess in the water is unlike anything he has seen anywhere else and each time he witnesses' it he cannot help but feel wonderous just like he did the first time he saw Mipha shoot through the water like there was nothing in her way and emerge from it in a spray that soaked him each time because Mipha was a regal Princess but she was also a warrior and a sister and she would never miss an opportunity to make her people and her friends laugh._

_"It is... good to meet you Link."_

_He nods, taking a few moments to decide the words. There is no direct translation of Princess and he has been informed that to speak in Zonai in the presence of the royal family would be seen as a slight, so he musters his will to work his tongue around the words, " **Good to meet you too Princess.** "_

_His voice is **wrong** the words do not form right and an accent he never knew he had lilts them and thickens them to the point it takes the Princess a few puzzled moments to understand him. With time his grasp should improve, he should be able to hold conversation more effectively and soundly._

* * *

* * *

The cold of Tabanath brings him back to the world completely and he wonders what he lived in the daze between a remembered life. It is nothing too serious, for he has no injuries and all his supplies are intact besides food which is to be expected.

"Welcome to the Rito village stables friend, how long do you think you'll be staying with us?"


	4. Rito Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: REFERENCES TO SUICIDE IDEATION

The stable is a literal stones throw from the entrance bridge to Rito village and that is why Link decides that he will not enter immediately. It is in complete contradiction to his prior motivations and feelings on the matter, but he's lost who knows how many days to who he used to be and Link needs to do something - _anything_ \- to ensure that he is in the here and now. The blue of his tunic (somehow cleaned successfully when the Zoran medics had wrangled him into a bed after he'd handed off the Lightscale trident) should be indication enough; the new scar on his shoulder, the lightning burns up his arm that were not present in his memories... all of it should be enough and yet they aren't.

Link feels as if he is living with his head trapped below the surf, occasionally the water will retreat to allow him to gasp for breaths and moments of clarity but then almost immediately he will be swallowed whole once more, vision blurred and air pressed from his lungs as the water presses down from all available sides desperate to establish it's dominance over his obstruction it's path.

So, he treks behind the stable, up the forested slopes and keepings going, up and up and up until the air around him thins ever so slightly and everything _tastes_ cold. He hadn't known that air could hold a taste, back on Lanayru he'd thought that everything was just cold and that he was hallucinating but here, on this miniature peak he can't help but understand. The world is different from this vantage.

If the air has taste, the air a chill like fingers tracing his exposed skin then what must the rest of the world feel like in this startling clarity. He turns his eyes downwards, to where he can see Rito village's spire rise in all it's rocky glory from it's island outcrop and his breath is stolen from his lungs as his eyes land on Vah Medoh for the first time in a century.

Medoh is beautiful, in all the ways Ruta was and more. She is moss covered stone and glowing crevices. There appears to be bushes, flowers and trees growing along her wingspan and back, ivy grows over her beak and it looks like green tear marks. The world tilts and he manages to stabilize himself on the ground before falling back in time.

-*-

_They stand at the edge of the world it feels like, the cliff face below his wrapped feet on the verge of collapse and yet remaining completely stable simultaneously , Rito village is sprawled out beneath them, Zelda is behind where he and Revali stand at the edge, watching Vah Medoh sluggishly loop her roost, conversing with one of the Rito researchers in the Rito native tongue._

_Link is under the impression that everyone thinks as a Zonai he's too thick in the head to know other languages. They're wrong, of course. The only language most Zonai never bother to learn is Hylian common; what was the point in learning the language when no matter if you understood it or not they were going to attack you anyway._

_"Tell me then, oh worthy knight, what you think of Vah Medoh? Impressive isn't she; though I wouldn't expect you to understand, you're probably too busy stalking the princess to pay much attention." Revali says more, but he loses track of most of it. His Hylian has come along leaps and bounds but there are still moments where the language fails him, like now not that he is willing to admit it. His fellow champion needs nothing else to metaphorically hold over his head._

_The Rito is an arsehole, he thinks, and Link can't find it in himself to not rejoice in his first honest opinion in months. The divine beasts had been found only months after he was forced into servitude to the Hyrule crown and (through the in-between times of stopping Yiga assassination's (he can at least say the Yiga are as equally disgusted in his appointment as he himself is) and planning how best to murder the bastard king) his birthday was growing closer making him more and more agitated._

_Seeing Mipha was all well and good, seeing her and letting himself be held and speaking his own language and hearing his own name had been euphoric in a way that had let him ignore the scowling's of the soldiers accompanying them, of the almost disturbing observations of the Princess. The way the young girls eyes tracked his every movement as he interacted with the Zora Princess was uncomfortable and not at all appropriate but he had, at the time, put it down to her curiosity for him and their intrepid language barrier. Now he is not so sure and thinks perhaps that she was under orders from her father to see if he was plotting to kill anyone like 'the savage he is'._

_Roham could play king all he wanted, but Link was much more attuned to the world and never did miss the thrown words._

_At this point in his life Link should be preparing for his final test of strength, to kill a silver lynel all on his own with no interference and his only contact with the rest of existence the older sibling who will stalk the perimeter of his fight to ensure he does not die if he should fail his test. Link is unsure if he will be able to go off and complete his trial; he cannot be a warrior without completing it and for someone meant to be a 'knight' not completing his trials is a disgrace to all who have come before and all those that will come after._

_Trials of strength - and of courage for Faron Zonai- are the turning points in their lives; each trial is different for each person. Those that know what they wish to do have tailored trials depending on what they wish to do; his mother had had to trek across the continent and successfully pray at each of the Triforce springs in order to be fully recognised as someone devoted enough to protect and cleanse their citadel spring, but the most important point was that you couldn't be seen as an adult without having accomplished these trials._

_He was using Zelda for what she could offer him, he was biding his time on murdering the king because it was much too soon since the Princess had lost one parent and he was waiting till he could leave the Hylian's grasps and go home. But he could do none of that without completing his trials._

_The fact that Revali had called him a **knight** agitated him and it must show - he has not yet perfected the blank mask that is expected of him and if his 'neutral' state more often then enough conveys his simmering aggression he sees no reason for the king to care. He does not have a blade at his throat **yet**.- because the Rito goes to chirp on, something about finally breaking his mask, about getting a reaction and Link is _ _**tired.** _

_Link hates Hyrule, he despises the Hylians and their misconceptions, their small minded shallow opinions and he despises how they attempt to poison every other race against the Zonai, like **they** are not the infestation that came down half a millennium ago and usurped them from their own land, like they aren't the insects that came and killed so many of Link's people in the name of 'defence', defence against a race of people who did nothing but live on the land their ancestors had been forged from. Hylians claimed the Goddess Hylia smiled upon them, Link cannot imagine it as anything other than a bloody smile - one filled with fangs and acidic lies._

_Perhaps that is why, when he musters up the restraint to not simply tell the Rito where he can shove his beak it is in perfect Rito._

_(Zonai have better luck recreating some of the more nuanced clicks and chirps, leaving their attempts at the language superior to most of the other races who learn it. Or at least that was what the big sibling Rito said when they'd taught Link and his siblings. It was rare, but not unknown, for Zonai to come from other races and to join the culture; it was however considered rude to ask why they had left, Link had always just taken one look at the stump where the green Rito's left wing should have been and the Hyrule royal family's insignia burned into the stump and knew it was something nobody had any right to discuss or have experienced.)_

**_"I'm not a knight, champion. I'm a warrior in training, there is a difference. The Zonai have no knights."_ ** _The conversation behind them stops, rather abruptly with the Rito researchers curse of 'oh shit' revealing that they have just realised that they've been talking behind his back quite literally and he has known what they are saying the entire time. He feels vindicated for a few seconds, watching Revali's mouth flap open and closed like the little cucco chicks do at Ahma's farm, **"And don't act like I'm here by choice. I assure you if it were up to me I would be preparing for my trials, not being a shadow."**_

_Revali seems to choke on his own spit and Link doesn't particularly care that he should not say these kind of things in front of his charge, Link is what amounts to a prisoner; chained to the Princess and kept from going home as punishment for killing a man who would have cleaved a scared child in half without a second thought. He wonders if the Hylian court ever heard what the solider had really done and if that would have changed how they felt or if they knew and just didn't care._

_His experiences in their anguishing existences proved the latter rather than the former._

**_"You- you can speak Rito!?"_ ** _It's a squawk of an answer but Link feels that the Rito would not like the comparison, the older sibling had shared that to compare Rito to birds was of the highest offence and while he thinks the champion rude he is not in the habit of unnecessary insults, there's no use wasting breath, **"What!? And what if the damned Hebra hills do you mean you aren't here by choice-"**_

**_"I'd rather not discuss the particular's of how I came upon my position in front of a child."_ **

_Once more silence settles over them, but this time it is one that the champion seems to understand. He hears a very small almost thoughtful 'Oh' from Revali and then the Rito is straightening up, smoothing his feathers and speaking at a normal level once more, **"Then let us talk in private then, warrior."**_

_It seems no matter the race the silent omission of a kill is universal, the universal understanding that thirteen year old Princess' who are recovering from the death of their parents are not the company to talk about death is also there._

-*-

All that is left over from the memory is a bitter taste in his mouth, that immediately translates to copper and he realises he has bitten the inside of his cheek to the point of puncture, he spits a glob of blood and watches as it stains the snow that has started to settle around him. The sky is darker than when he climbed up meaning that a significant amount of time has past. Logically he should climb down and retire to the stable for the night so that he does not get ill, so that he can continue his journey as quickly as he can.

He intends to do that, to pull his too young bones up to a standing position, to heft himself down the hill and try not to think about what it would feel like to let himself fall and hit every rock and tree on the way down just to see if it would make everything just _stop_.

The past and the present never seem to get along with him, and so his legs collapse back under him as his mind goes off to somewhere it knows but has never met.

-*-

_The wind howls through the flight range, the natural updrafts doing nothing but encouraging the symphony of noise and Link finds his hands going to spirit beads that are no longer there._

**_A_ ** _**distraction** , they were called and so they were taken from him._

_Link feels in desperate need of them now though, the flurry unending and the wind screaming around the small wooden structure - and as newly built and sturdy as it is he cannot feel that the spirits are intent on pulling it down tonight. If he still had his beads he'd hold them, count out the spirits of storms, of snow and of wind and utter their names one by one asking for their kindness because never did you ask for their mercy because spirits were not in the manner of giving it. And, because he is a Faron Zonai he would then have to pray to the snow spirits he would name for he has never had cause to call on them before and he cannot be seen to be so disrespectful when in the heart of it's territory._

_His hands still itch to where they had rested around his neck, under his tunic, and even if he has no beads he still tries to complete the rest. He murmurs the names under his breath, bringing a fist up to his mouth in an imitation of how he would press the words into the wood of each bead, and then he closes his eyes and preys; preys that the spirits will relent before Revali decides that his shivering for is worth killing and eating in the event that the flurry continues and they run out of food._

**_"Are you praying?"_ ** _He finishes his prayer before opening his eyes and turning them to the navy Rito sat on the opposite side of the fire to him. There's no judgement in his voice, just curiosity. The two of them have learnt they can be much more open, more honest, with the Princess not in their presence and Zelda had dismissed him before the storm started to go train and to leave her to her research. It has been a year since he had been forced to be her guard and Link has yet to see anything fruitful from the affair, **"Who do you pray to? I don't think I've ever heard you say."**_

**_"Right now I'm praying to the spirits of storms, wind and snow, that they might end their actions before you decide eating me is a good source of enrichment."_ **

_Revali stares at the fire for a few moments, the orange light casts moving shadows across his beak and feathers, shrouding him in a sentient darkness. He does not speak for a few more moments still but his eyes move up to look him in the eye. Link believes there's something close to a cry for help in them._

**_" ~~Link~~ what on the Goddess' damned earth goes on in your head?"_ **

_It is said so seriously that Link cannot help but laugh, the noise breaks free of him, makes him curl tightly to himself as he shakes and tries not to loose full control and accidentally roll off into the seemingly bottomless flight range's updraft pit. The Rito looks offended at him but his visage is blurred from tears of laughter, **"You laugh but it merely strengthens my worry that you are not all there. First you cannot fish with a spear and now you are worried about me eating your body like I would ever stoop to that level? Are we not friends? How can you assume I would not simply kick you out and let the weather take you so that I would not have to share my rations?"**_

-*-

Not much time has passed this time.

The sun is only slightly lower than it was before he slipped away and this time he manages to move and make it down the hill, manages to make it back to the stable where he books a bed for the night and drifts off with little to no hesitation - dead to the world as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He'd had some spare money from the Zora Domain, with the extra shock arrows he had collected saving him and all the broken and rusted loot he'd pilfered from Ruta's guts he'd sold it was possible to afford himself the luxury of a bed. Of course, only the basic bed with the request of an obscenely early awakening because Link did not have much money to spare and what he did he would use it well.

Waking up before the sun has properly began it's journey for the day is nothing new, but the bed makes it difficult even if the only times he has not awoken with the sun is the day of his awakening and the times he has been to injured to do so.

"Welcome!" The Rito Guard doesn't seem to care that his hood is down, that his skin and his hair and his scars are exposed, all the Rito see's is a visitor and it feels liberating, "You've turned up at a bit of a bad time, traveller, I'm afraid with Vah Medoh as it is the village is rather down in the dumps!"

Link doesn't truly know Rito anymore, he's had a faint memory of it and surely it would not be something he would be able to speak with only the slightest inclination that he was capable of doing it. But he tries, because what else can he do but try.

 _ **"I came because of Medoh."**_ The Rito gawps at him, eyes jumping upon every feature visible to him like he's hoping that there will be some kind of celestial sign on his chest to explain everything, _**"Could you take me to the Elder?"**_

 _ **"Of course!"**_ The guard fumbles with his spear, wings fluttering about as he pulls a bell and starts waving it violently, before long the ringing is drowned out by the footsteps and clacking of talons against sturdy wood as other warriors make their way to them, the guard turns his words to the approaching Rito, _**"Our friend needs to see Elder Kanali! It's about Medoh!"**_

Sharp eyes rove over him and then they pick up something that makes them widen and he's ushered up twisting bridges and staircases until he is stood before a somewhat familiar pagoda and Elder Kanali's face goes pale.

* * *

* * *

It seems Rito village knows of the Zonai champion (and something settles inside of him at the name - in every memory with Zelda that he's secured from the slate he is always called the Hylian Champion and to be given the right name it is soothing) and they know he is supposed to be dead - but they also know that no Rito has taught an outsider the now archaic language of clicks and whistles and that there is no way that a dark skinned red haired man who could speak Rito and wields a Sheikah slate could be anyone but the Zonai champion.

Everything goes somewhat smoothly, with the Rito knowing who he is and not being suspicious of him. Kanali had brought him close as he had made his way into the roost, feathered arms holding him to a feathered chest as the Elder spoke of having never thought it possible to see him again; he speaks of how he had only been a young Rito when he and Revali had been champions - how he remembers the way a Zonai presence had changed the village, made it stronger. The way the elder speaks indicates that at one point there had been many Zonai here and he hopes that that means that the poisoned bias he had seen in his memory before is gone. 

Link has never let anyone hold him, Bazz having to cart him to an infirmary did not count and neither did Sidon carrying him on his back, but the way he melts into feathers tells him that perhaps his previous life had loved the feeling; and that raises questions of his relationship with Revali but when he thinks of the few moments he remembers with the champion he cannot help but finding himself thinking that beneath the bluster perhaps Revali had been physically affectionate; but someone who would be impossible to see it coming from due to his walls of ice.

Fabricated though they may have been.

These thoughts were merely impressions of feelings but he's come to trust these impressions; their whispered thoughts are usually backed up by more concise memories sooner or later anyway.

When he is released from the hug he tells the story of how he relinquished Ruta from the blights control, how he wrestled the control away and set the Princess' spirit free. He had expected resistance, maybe deep buried pride stopping him from being able to offer his aide, but he is asked to help - asked to put himself into the situation because he is the last one alive who truly understands the beasts and Link cannot stop himself from feeling a small ounce of pride.

Revali's freedom will gain him a step closer to his own; and perhaps more memories of his friend await him. Before they can dare to discuss how he would go about the taming of Medoh a pink Rito hurtles through the doorway looking like she's just flown through a gale, **_"Kanali, it's Teba! He's- spirits damn him- he's at the flight range saying he's going to go storm Medoh on his own and he's got bomb arrows! Hearth can't get him to come home and damn it all to the skies if he's willing to listen to me when he's burning like this! He hasn't been seeing straight since Hearth was shot down."_**

Kanali and he exchange looks and Link slinks off to the flight range, somewhere only briefly distinct in his muddled memories but he finds his way there eventually, leaving the wife who he learns to be Saki by asking around to find direction's to Teba to vent to Kanali about 'stupid husbands who seemingly loose touch with reality when it comes to defending loved ones'.

-*-

When he arrives at the flight range it is cold, as he remembers it, and he can only imagine the White Rito who dismisses him without looking is Teba, but Link will not be stopped, **_"Medoh won't break if you bomb her, let me help you. I can calm her."_**

**_"And I'm sure you know all about...Medoh......."_ **

The Rito is looking at him, eyes darting all over him seemingly recognising him like Kanali had although it makes no sense. He has to wonder if the whole village knows what a Sheikah slate looks like.

**_"You're Master ~~Link~~ -"_ **


	5. Vah Medoh

The Rito's beak drops open, his shoulders rising in tension as the rest of his body seems to become loose in shock, Link can't help but feel something close to pride. The Zora had known him; had grown up with him in some cases but they had held him at arms length, he was there as champion with a duty. The Rito so far have pulled him close, and Kanali has spoken to and asked help of him as if he is just one of their own and it feels peaceful.

 _**"Medoh is still sentient, bombing her will only make her worse."**_ He moves closer to the fire pit in the centre of the flight range's platform, the fire pit is familiar and he feels more grounded as he stands by something so familiar to him, _**"I can make her calm though, I want to help."**_

_**"Help... You. Master ~~Link~~ I mean no disrespect but our best warriors have been knocked out of the sky, you're a child."** _

Link wonders how young he looks, how much truth about him is known and how much has been lost to time or Hylian rumour. Teba must be an adult to marry, and the small chick that he'd seen at the doorway of Kanali's roost watching Saki looks too much like Teba to be anything but his child and so he must be somewhere between a young adult and midlife... But does Link really look that young? He knows, faintly and from his more recent memories, that he was in his twenties by the time the Calamity struck. He knows the Calamity struck once Zelda was seventeen, and he had met the Princess when he was sixteen and she was thirteen meaning that four years had past between their meeting. But he doesn't remember when his birthday was ( ~~ _is?_~~ ) and so he knows he must have been in the range of twenty to twenty-one.

An adult... from what he knows now, what he remembers, he knows he would have had to complete trials to officially enter adulthood and wonders if he ever got to finish them, ever got to complete them. The memory of telling Mipha about his fight with a Lynel tells him that perhaps he did; but in terms of age -even without his century of resurrection- he meets the threshold for adulthood.

 _ **"Teba, I was in my twenties when the Calamity struck,"**_ Shock does not show well on the Rito and he almost wants to snicker but the quicker they complete this unnecessary quarrel the sooner Link can be on Medoh's back, freeing her and Revali who's trapped within, _**"I am no child. I have completed my trials, I am of age and if need be I will climb the village spire."**_

He did not intend to make it a habit of threatening people into helping him, but if it is how things work now in this Hyrule then perhaps he must adapt. His purpose is freeing the other champions and eventually the Princess, he has his purpose and his motivations and he would like to rest forever as soon as he can.

The Rito stalls, watching him and seemingly trying to understand something that Link cannot see on himself, there's some hint of power in this standoff; of knowing that his mere existence is enough to command respect... it is a loving turn of events from his Hylian encounters.

_**"Night will break soon, it's too risky to fly near Medoh at night. I- We'll attack** **tomorrow, just after day break."** _

-*-

He finds himself invited back into the village then, the news of his arrival spreading quickly apparently and by the time his feet have hit the wooden landings Kanali is there to meet him and offer his roost to him for the night. It is a small mercy because Link cannot afford the Rito inn's prices and considering how low they are he is relieved to not show them how much he must have fallen from the warrior they have idolised. 

Ironically he must be acting quite like his old self now for nobody to have asked if he has any missing memories; it is just yet another mystery about himself. How different is he now from who he used to be - how different is the Link from before Ruta to the one who woke up cold and alone with only a dead King's cryptic demands to guide him. His chest is light when he accepts Kanali's offer for his roost and he is dragged by Teba to his own to eat, to introduce himself to Saki and the chick who he learns is called Tulin. From what little he gathers, this is tradition, to eat with the warrior you'll be laying your life down with the next day.

When he eats, he slips into his mind but this time it is not a memory. Not fully at least.

No, what he feels now is a jumbled ball of emotions he would probably best describe as a tangled knot of string. There is a distinct ending and beginning but nobody is quite sure which is which and how the string has become so amalgamated in the first place. He thinks of Roham, how he played the innocent old man helping a distressed stranger -how even when he revealed who he was he never revealed his true emotions on the fact that Link existed.

He has to wonder if the rest of the Zonai had perished, if that had satiated his thirst and now that Link was the last he found no need to take it out on him, maybe he is not the last but he feared awakening the burning pyre of hatred he harbours for the dead man and worried that if Link knew the truth that he would reject the call for aid. The last possibility he thinks of settles into his chest like ice down the back of his shirt - painfully sharp and unexpected. 

Perhaps Roham had never expected him to remember the Zonai in the first place and it angers him, to think that he could be the last of his race and that he would have sent himself off to die defeating Ganon without knowing he was taking forgotten knowledge to the grave with him. He does not know if any other Zonai still live, he desperately hopes they do perhaps hidden in the depths of Faron's forests, the caved hills of Eldin, the Mountainous forests of Akkala and Lanayru but because he cannot be sure he has to exist on the assumption nobody is left.

It knocks him sick, and it must show on his face because Saki asks him if he's alright. He has no answer to that, because what is there to say? That he's living and working on assumptions and that he should be long dead but something keeps him moving and he worries that perhaps he will not have remembered everything that makes him him by the time the given gift of life is snatched back or snuffed out before then.

So instead of saying all that, instead of saying anything remotely like that because it is not his place to worry the Rito with his depressing musings he lies, because lying on something like this is only in favour for everyone else, _**"It's been awhile since I ate with someone, I think the last time was in Akalla before I freed Ruta..."**_

The pink Rito puffs up her feathers, and seems to be seconds away fluttering out the roost to grab others to join them, Teba gives him a look he refuses to look into. Tulin is the only reasonable one in the roost and simply moves closer and asks him to tell him stories of his journey so far. The journey between Zora's Domain and into the depths of the Hebra mountains are lost to him and his bloodied battle with the Lynel is out of the question. Not to mention he knows talking about what he has faced in Hyrule's Hylian villages is not for small children who are still so happy with the world. So he settles on one of the only stories he can think that would be suitable.

**_"It all started when I first returned to Kakiriko village, there's a man there who is obsessed with painting beautiful things - but he was too old to walk the path to the fairy fountain."_**

-*-

Medoh is beautiful as she circles the village but her cry as they approach is anything but. It is pained, desperate and wrathful; Link is under no illusions that the sentient beast wants rid of it's intruder and it wants it gone _now_.

As he perches on Teba's back the Rito mutters that Medoh is much more agitated now than she had been the last time he had been up in her airspace, and he cannot help but think of Sidon's similar comment of how Ruta had moved more, seemed more eager to retaliate and attack once Link had arrived to relinquish it of it's blight. He wonders if its the beasts acknowledging the Sheikah slates presence and reacting accordingly or if his past friends can sense him and come into possession of more consciousness when the blights react to something so spiritually opposite to them.

The Blights are parts of Ganon, they are malice incarnate and Link is blessed with divine protection in the form of the Triforce of courage for all that he has used it in his journey so far. They are opposites, similar in many ways that he feels should make his skin crawl but he understands to a better degree, even if it's only slightly, how balance works. And you cannot have malice without blessing it is understandable that they are opposites and yet similar.

In the end they emerge from the same thing, force of will.

When he jumps from Teba's back paraglider at the ready he finds a forgotten prayer leaving his lips and he thinks some of the names are similar to what he prayed to over a century ago in the middle of that storm at the flight range. His bought snowquill keeps him warm but he can only hope that he does not speak the wrong name incur the wrath of anything more than he probably has from Hylia. Not that he cares what the Goddess will do to him, he has wasted away many lifetimes for her it is perhaps time she felt what it is like for her precious champion to detest her for what she has allowed to continue.

(The story of the Hero of the Sky was told even in Zonai tribes; they speak of a kinder king, one who did not want to take but to coexist. A king who had faced the hideous Demise and had taken on the burden of eternal rebirth to keep the world safe from Demise's wrathful existence, a King who had extended the hand of friendship and asked for help in learning about those that had claimed the surface long before Skyloftian's had come back down. The Goddess could have requested aid, it was said, from the other gods and spirits. She could have requested that the curse be lifted but it was also said that the Goddess loved her King too much to want to part from him and so allowed the struggle of rebirth continue, allowing the Hylian's to grow cold and bitter and distrustful of anything or anyone they did not immediately associate as themselves.

That was why the Zonai had faced brutality, they looked too much like what the Hylian's had envisioned they return to the surface would bring and yet did not realise that things did not work the same in the sky as they did on solid ground and they were jealous. A reminder to what they _should_ have been and yet weren't. Link wondered when that jealousy had turned to the intent to harm.

From what he knew the Hylians had hunted any Zonai they found like animals for sport. That kind of mentality did not occur overnight - a man bringing a sword down on a scared child with no second thoughts did not come about for no reason.)

Snapping his paraglider open at the last moment he allows Medoh's created updrafts to lift him high above the beast, her foliage on her back is covered by a solid red shield and something tells him it should be Sheikah blue. Swooping towards the first target he curses under his breath as he watches Teba just avoid a laser strike.

Dropping is liberating and he pulls his bow from his back and notches his first bomb arrow, letting it fly with the same certainty that he let the arrow fly between the Hylian's eyes over a century ago.

-*-

_"Keeping me waiting for a hundred years is a bit indulgent, don't you think?"_

Unlike with Mipha, he does not collapse in front of the control panel when he hears Revali's voice; whether that is because now he is fully aware that the Rito is dead, that there will be nobody to bring home or if it is because he has realised that there is nothing to gain from tears he doesn't know.

What Link does know however, is the just like with Mipha he feels the fleeting ghostly touches along his arms as the unseen ghost ushers him forward, towards his first true challenge on Medoh. He just about gets the first guardian and malice guard taken care of before he is falling into the past.

-*-

_Talons clicking against stone overrode the whistling of the wind all around them, the navy Rito in front of him strutting and preening like a proud child and Link keeps to the back of the group close to Mipha as the Rito champion gives the other champions a tour of his soaring divine beast._

_It had been a challenge to pull a Goron onto a flying bird, what with Revali's prideful insistence that Medoh need not settle herself till it was their time of need but eventually he had relented and now they were following him through the upper chamber of the beasts right wing, watching one of the old Sheikah puzzles and listening as the champion explained how he used it to open or close the observation window._

_Paraglider on his back he felt the urge to go to the window and get the Rito to open it just so he could see if he could ride the wind to the village or not; considering it would probably result in Revali having to leave Urbosa and Daruk unattended on his precious Medoh the other was most likely not going to accept his idea - not to mention Mipha had noticed his linger gaze and slid her arm around his, a warning look in her eyes that said if he tried it she would not be bringing him from the brink of death when he dropped out of the sky like a Goron in a lake._

_If it wasn't for the fact Link knew how utterly ridiculous his idea was he'd be offended, as it were he was at least glad for the scepticism his childhood friend had for him; at least someone would be willing to call him out. Revali wouldn't want to leave his beast unattended essentially (and he was even less inclined to let Zelda run through it where she could, in the Rito's words, ' **get her grubby inventor mitts on Medoh. I swear if we left her alone with the beasts we'd come back to them in piles of parts just so she could see how they all came together.** ' so he'd either just outright refuse or he'd let Link drop out the sky to prove to him he was an idiot. _

_Urbosa and himself were... still at odds. He had proved himself loyal to Zelda when he had rescued her from the Yiga outside of Gerudo town, but the Gerudo and Zonai were still tense with each other. They looked similar, due to a similarity in their primary locations (though Zonai's skin was much more varied than the Gerudo), but the fact that so many male Zonai looked like Male Gerudo rubbed the warrior women the wrong way; the tainting and overtaking of Ganondorf still fresh in the cultures minds and it unnerved them to see so many people that looked so similar to someone that had stained their inter race relations because of a curse._

_Although Link believed it was because Urbosa was aware he wanted to end Roham and was merely using the Princess for the future possibility of his own freedom. So he had little hope that she would see him attempt something likely to kill him and make a comment that perhaps he shouldn't. After all she put her little bird above all else. (He still remembered how Revali had cringed at the nickname the first time he had seen it.)_

_Daruk however, more than likely, would encourage it and that was one of the sole reasons that Mipha had made a habit of attending things with him if he were to previously have been alone with Daruk. His Princess already catching onto the fact he was willing to let someone else's lack of self preservation act as a shield for his own intentional stupidity._

_Really it was a wonder his friend even put up with him. It was an even bigger mystery that she had not had him sent to be executed by Roham the second he'd confided in her how much he wished he could slice his throat. Come to think of it, it was unusual that Urbosa had not turned him in as well. Perhaps the other races disdain for Hylians was not as prominently shown as the Zonai's but still there buried beneath the surface only appearing to give free passes to fleeting suggestions of assassination._

_Truly, Mipha was too good for him._

_" ~~ **Link**~~ I was wondering, if perhaps you would be willing to test my theory of flight from Medoh's wing to the village via non-wing means." Revali's eyes caught his, mischief in them and Mipha's hold tightened, "Although I can't say you'll make it all the way there. Princess, you're lighter why don't you give it a try!" the Rito's words were directed at Mipha and the Zora seemed at a loss of what to do for a few moments._

_Seemingly she had forgotten that Revali intended not only on dragging Link into his plots but that in being friends with both of them she was to be subjected to their shared idiocy._

_"I would rather not die in a imitation of a cucco, but thank you Revali. If we are offering though, I assume you would like to join ~~ **Link**~~ and I on our next journey up the waterfalls or would that soak your feathers too much?"_

_Sharp teeth answered the ploy and Revali snickered. "Fair enough, Princess, fair enough. Though I still wish you would let me throw our dearest warrior here off of Ruta."_

**_"Still caught more fish than you."_ **

_A beak was snapped at him in mock offense, "Foul Zonai."_

**_"Uncooked cucco."_ **

-*-

He returned in time to stop his previously listless form from tumbling into Medoh's bowls. Broken bones would be counter intuitive to this entire fight after all.

The rest of the journey through the beast is not so dissimilar to how it went through Ruta, of course there is major variation in the structure of the beasts but nevertheless the puzzles are similar enough and then, he arrives at the top deck of Medoh's left wing.

Ghostly laughter from his recently discovered memory haunts him, far worse than Revali's commentary does, and he tries to keep moving, to just complete the puzzle but he stalls at the window and watches the world go by beneath him. No wonder Revali felt so powerful from Medoh's back, with the world sprawled out innocent below you who wouldn't feel overwhelmingly powerful and almost god-like.

A smile crawls onto his mind unbidden as he looks at the view, the urge to activate the puzzle and test if he truly could make it all the way to Rito Village burns in his chest, encouraging his smile as he thinks of how Revali would squawk at him; wings flapping about in distress as the warrior watched him plummet before snapping open his glider at the last second inevitably ripping his arms from their sockets at such a sudden shift in speed. He imagined it would work much the same way it had for the Guardian stalker he'd managed to trick into falling off a cliff.

Those things were disgusted Hylia birthed creatures and the second he figured out how to perfect his parries was the minute he made it to Hyrule field and took revenge for the fool he'd been made to look when he first awoke on the plateau. 

Medoh banked in her flight, not enough to make him loose his balance but it gave him a new view now, still the same almost omniscient view of the world but now he could distinctly see Ruta stood on her hill, laser pointed at the castle, solitary and strong in her aid to Zelda. And then, Medoh turned again and he saw Hyrule castle. A towering structure encased on all sides by malice and tormented by the Calamity; he has to turn away then seeing the end destination of his quest (possibly his existence) he is reminded sharply and unfairly of all the must be done. It feels like a rock is being lain against his chest and every time he tries to breath it is pushed deeper and _deeper_ until eventually there will be no chest, just a fissure completed by a stone. He's unsure if this stone is made of judgement or guilt.

Perhaps the fact that he cannot bare to look out the window anymore tells him which it is.

Link plays the ignorant fool.

* * *

* * *

Finally, _finally,_ Link finds himself on Medoh's back and he forces himself not to fall under the pressure as he sees the ruined columns along Medoh's back - still harbouring char marks from where their Champion had tried to use them to help or save himself.- and the foliage that has grasped on and persevered in the harsh environment. It's even more beautiful up close and when he starts to move he feels the wind running through him and he feels _free_.

Setting the Sheikah slate against the control panel he is quick to reattach it and pull his bow from his back not too long before Revali's words of warning across the divine beasts back. The Blight screams, crawls it's disgusting way out of the control panel and lifts itself high above him. The air is it's domain and he realises them, with no small sense of anger, that where Mipha's execution (because that is what they had all been - _executions._ ) was private, kept to the confines of her divine beast where in her last moments she might have felt protected... Revali's death had been made to look a spectacle - an open air fight for anyone who had been unfortunate enough to fly at Medoh's altitude to see. A coliseum battle between blight and champion.

Wind Blight Ganon screams again now that it is free, and it slashes at him with it's dastardly claws and Link doesn't hold back.

There is no room for mercy in avenging.

-*-

Link hears Revali's scream before the world goes dark, his vision being the first thing to fail him as he slips from the world.

Pain burns through him, a ghostly wing grabs his broken hand and begs him to get up, to not die like this - _'You can't die like this, no no no- ~~ **Link**~~ don't you dare do this to me-'_

 _Everything stops_ and he hears Revali call his name one more time before nothing-

-*-

Mipha is staring at him, a faint echo of the spirit she had been inside of Ruta - more of a turquoise outline than anything else- and she presses her hand to his cheek, her crest to his forehead and the world is real and cold around him and Wind Blight Ganon brings down it's weapon a second too slow allowing him to roll out of it's way.

He doesn't know why Mipha was there, but he knows he has to kill the blight. 

-*-

And so he throws himself into the fight, screaming his war cries with vengeance and unbridled fury. He will not be bested by this thing - he will not allow his friend to be held hostage any longer. Not as long as he draws breath.

Delivering the final blow is easy, having knocked it to the ground he rushed and just like with Ruta brandishes his sword before burying it into the malice's eye. It thrashes and screams but dies on the floor; no witnesses but the dead to the end of it's pitiful existence. He takes a moment to breath and it is only then that he feels the wind on his chest and looks down to notice the gaping hole in his snowquill. There's a new scar there.

 _"How dare you!"_ Sharp talons catch him by the shoulder and he's sent tumbling across Medoh's back, hands scrambling for anything to grab on to ensure he doesn't go tumbling over the edge, he can't process what's happening and thinks perhaps the Blight had a smaller form- _"How dare you, you stupid blathering fool! Who are you to die for me!?"_

Rolling onto his back his chest aches as he spots Revali, tall and proud with a quivering beak, _"You are not allowed to die you insufferable nuisance so how dare you do it for me!?"_


	6. Gifts of flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing the update yesterday, I was working late and had to start early today so I didn't have the time.

_**"What?"**_ His head is pounding, vision spinning and Link can barely focus on the ghostly Rito stood before him, he tries to get his feet under him but is unsuccessful. He manages to push his arms up though, _ **"What are you going on about-"**_

 _"Don't take me for a fool you ingrate, I held you in my damn wings as your heart stopped beating! You're this kingdoms only chance - you're the only thing keeping Zelda going and you-"_ Revali's beak clicks shut, wing tips turning into shaking fists, finally Link manages to get onto his knees though his vision is still blurry and he forces himself to stay still as the ghost moves towards him with purpose ingrained in each step, _"_ ~~**_Link_**~~ _you **died** and if you hadn't- if you hadn't gotten Mipha's grace you'd be nothing but a corpse on Medoh's back same as me. We're on the verge of freedom you can't throw it all away now."_

His friend stops in front of him towering over him and, on his knees and feeling blood sluggishly moving down his head from where he hit it when Revali sent him flying, he watches as the Rito drops aswell.

They stare at each other for a few moments, and then chilling wings are pressed to his cheeks and bringing their foreheads together. His hands uncurl from his side and hesitantly seek out the cold tangible form in front of him, trailing his hands over the wings around him he settles them in the ghostly sensation of Revali's champion scarf. The scarf is coarse in his hands, fine woven thread held together only by the faded memories of the past.

Link had done this with Mipha as well, had held her and cried as he pressed their heads together, he hadn't felt any shame then and he most certainly doesn't have any shame now as he dissolves into tears.

Warmth encapsulates them, sunrise hitting just as he had landed the final blow on the blight. The shift in temperature due to the rising sun keeps him present as his lungs attempt to give up on him, attempting to relent under the strain of all that crashes into him - an unstoppable storm of which he is the only victim, no eye in sight as it swirls around him and attempts to suffocate him in his own sorrow. The two of them know that his tears can't muss up the dead Rito's feathers, but as wing tips wipe them away (replaced by fresh tears the second old ones are removed) his friend still bumps their heads and grumbles about how damp his feathers will be afterwards.

Instead of getting him to stop crying like he assumes is the point it does nothing but make it _worse._

_**"I'm so sorry that I left all of you for so long-"** _

_"You're here now, you foul little Zonai."_ He cracks his eyes open, the sun pressing down on them and demanding he looks, Rito cannot smile (not with beaks) but he thinks that's the expression Revali is going for, " _That's what matters."_

-*-

Revali's gale is extra weight added to the burden on his shoulders, but it is a weight he gladly takes on, he hesitates to take it though - not on Medoh's back. He will take the gift, the last reminder of his friend, besides from the Great Eagle bow that is pressed into his shaking hands with a burning look that tells him it is an offence to _not_ take the weapon, but he will not take it when there is business that must be completed before then.

That's why he and Revali find themselves in front of the observation window on the top deck of Medoh's right wing.

 _ **"One last flight,"**_ He hopes his voice is not too chocked up to get the words right, _**"Just the two of us- before we have to say goodbye. We never did figure out if I could make it to the village did we?"**_

To call the look he's given 'soft' would probably result in a scoff and an embarrassed friend or possibly an agitated Revali and Link would wish nothing less than to have his last interaction with the Rito be soured so he decidedly keeps his mouth shut after that. Revali has Medoh open the window before standing on the edge of the opening.

Revali stands there, on the precipice of flight and he looks at peace, somehow the wind ruffles his feathers and as the champion watches the world below he chuckles at the sensation, one wing tip reaching out for the air, flexing around it as if he can grab it and harness it once again like he did the first time around.

Link pulls the gifted bow onto his back and readies his paraglider in his hands, _"It's been over a century since I've flown, ~~ **Link**~~ before we fly-"_

Eyes jumping back to the wings of his friend he watches as three feathered tips are pressed to his heart, to the tip of his beak and then to his heart again, other wing coming up to curl them palmward. Wordlessly he repeats the motions before a morose smile slips onto his lips, the two of them ready themselves and they stand side by side; shoulder to shoulder, _**"The flight of the century, taking off in five... four, three two o-NE!"**_

His voice spikes what must be eighteen octaves as Revali kicks him out the window and Link tumbles through the air before managing to snap the glider open correctly so that he is not a rolling lump of flesh in the sky, Revali's laughter breaks the oppressing rushing of air and he cannot bring himself to stop his own cheers, every time he had previously flown it had always had some deep rooted mourning feeling attached to it and he thinks that perhaps he had joined Revali in flight plenty a time before everything ended; he pushes that away for thought later, for now he enjoys the sheer lunacy of flying towards Rito Village from Vah Medoh. 

**_"So! What do you think! Is it as stupid as you..."_ **

Turning his head towards the ghost at his side he trails off as he spots the look of utter peace and acceptance on Revali's face. His eyes are closed but his face has never looked so open in the memories he has of him, and the Rito is silent, letting the wind run under his wings, the air controlling their path as nature intended with all creatures of flight.

 _"I've been able to watch the village,"_ Revali's voice is small and it is only the fact that they're so close that he can hear him, he imagines his words are lost to the air as soon as they pass his ears, _"I've watched warriors grow and I've watched them turn frail. I'd forgotten what it felt like to fly. You'll give Teba my bow won't you? He's adequate - not on my level of course but perhaps if he has a bow to live up to he'll move along quicker."_

 ** _"Of course."_** He banks sharply, spotting the top of the village's rock spire, he keeps his eyes on the rock thinking of how best to land without breaking his legs, _**"I promise."**_

A chuckle, deep, rumbling and almost capable of tricking him into thinking the Rito at his side is alive, _"I'll hold you to it. I can only hope you use my gift well."_

His eyes snap towards the Rito then, frantic, to see him turning to turquoise wisps before him and it's as he lands, skidding because he had been more focused on seeing his friend in his second last moments to even care about landing on his feet properly, that he feels the orb hit his chest and he knows then that Revali has moved on, and that in his place there remains only his gale.

The next steps he takes after righting himself feel lighter after that and he swears he feels one last of a brush of a wing against his arm before the feeling dissipates and he's left bleeding and alone on top of Rito village with damaged snowquill and one of his closest friends weapon on his back.

Tears threaten him but he beats them down. He has a bow to deliver and weapons to attend to, he fully intends to open his glider back up and get himself down to Revali's landing when his mind betrays him and he's tumbling into a memory.

-*-

_"Come on little guy! Rock roast is fantastic!"_

_Link nearly bites his tongue in half as Daruk's arm collides with his back in a sign of friendly affection that by non-Goron standards would be more closely associated with attempted murder than a pat on the back. But who knew, perhaps attempted murder was a part of Goron culture; the Gerudo had a wedding festival where apparently the bridesmaids hunted the bride-to-be through a sacred temple in order to ensure that she was still a warrior even if she was intending to marry. Apparently even if the bride was caught she still got married but it was a commonly held belief that the bride who did not get caught stayed married longer. So it wasn't outside of the possibility of Hyrule based cultures to involve some level of mock violence._

_The rest of the champions ignore his plight and continue on with their eating of **normal** Rito-centric meals; ignoring him so that they too are not subjected to Daruk's earnest hope that someone will give his race's local cuisine a try. Link, for whatever reason (he knows Mipha and Revali's reasons: Mipha's teeth were (while incredibly sharp) liable to dulling if she were to try and eat rocks and given they were one of her natural weapons it would be stupid to ask her to give them up simply for food. Revali on the other hand was a coward. Plain and simple. The uncooked cucco had taken one look at the roast, spared Link a look that was downright conniving and then magically created some reason to have to talk to the village elder on the other end of the Rito banquet table) had been the one left to try and not offend the Goron whilst still trying to keep his teeth intact._

_Now, he was trying to not show the other champion that he was fairly sure he'd just had his spine dislocated. And also save his teeth._

_"Rock's not... good nutrition."_

_He couldn't help but cringe at the broken Hylian, still not having perfected the language and he tried to ignore the looks sent his way. They weren't malicious by any stretch of the imagination, rather they were curious. Why was it, he had heard one Rito warrior ask their fellow Rito, that the Princess' appointed guard not speak their own language?_

_To hear that people actually thought Zonai and Hylian were interchangeable after all the Hylians had done was angering, it was infuriating and blood boiling even but he couldn't quite blame the Rito. Especially given the fact the Hylian court kept such a chokehold on the Zonai that it was no wonder even Zelda had no clue why besides the Triforce he had anything to do with her or knighthood._

_"Maybe, maybe not! But one of my brothers was saying that our rock roasts are filled with all sorts of minerals that you hylian's need!"_

_His flinch was unintentional._

_Daruk was not an idiot however and lowered his volume effectively cutting off their conversation from everybody else when he leant in closer, "Little guy? Do you ah- is it offensive to call you that? Like I - well I know you're Zonai and all but you live in Hyrule and I just assumed-"_

_"You didn't know." His hands curl into fists beneath the table, perched atop his knees as they sit criss cross just to fit under the low tables, "Zonai and Hylian... too different. Don't mix."_

_"Oh! Well then I'll make sure-"_

_" **Ah um..."**_ A nervous hum brings his attention to a younger Rito hovering near his shoulder on the opposite side of Daruk, " ** _Zonai Champion we- well my brother he joined your tribe a good few years ago and I- well you see I kept in contact and learnt a few dishes and... we prepared some things to make you feel at home! Given that ah..."_** _The Rito's eyes skipped to the onvoy of Hylian soldiers and the Hylian-Rito ambassador who are sat at their own table a few footsteps away before moving back to look at him,_ ** _"the Hylian ambassador didn't mention anything for you when they did the others."_**

 **_"Thank you,"_ ** _How long had it been since he'd last eaten something from home?, **"warrior...?"**_

**_"Kanali!"_ **

-*-

_**"You can't be serious - he nearly froze toe death at the top of the village and you want to let him roam around Hyrule!? He looks like he hasn't had a decent meal in months! I don't give a Hylia sworn damn that he's a Champion he's going to kill himself at this rate!"** _

Everywhere aches, and breathing causes a hitch in his throat as it feels like a blade is being shoved in and twisted about. His eyes hurt too much though and he cannot being himself to squeeze them shut tighter, never mind force them open.

_**"He's waking up!"** _

-*-

Link is unsure as to how Revali wanted him to gift the Great Eagle bow to Teba; perhaps in some important ceremony or in the presence of the village elder. He does know however that the proud Rito is probably stamping his foot somewhere beyond the realm of the living because handing it over a goodbye dinner in the Rito's roost is probably the least formal way Link could have gone about it.

He'd been told, after awaking from a two day sleep, that he'd been found bleeding out atop of the village, glider and great bow clutched to his battered body like lifelines. The assessment was not too far from the truth and Link found he was almost ashamed to say it but chose to anyway; there was no point being ashamed, especially when he didn't intend on living longer than needed and in a few months there would probably be no need for teasing. People didn't like to tease the dead; and only barely did he relent from chastising the Rito warriors for doing it to him for that reason. There was no need regardless, when they heard who's bow it was that he had been found clutching the air would turn sombre.

Presenting the bow was spur of the moment. 

Sitting across from the Rito family in their roost, a plan to set off for the Goron's mountainous town in mind for the next morning, he'd been invited to eat dinner with them one last time before departing. Tulin had been sat on his left, as he had every time they'd been sat next to each other at meal times, and had begged to know what the tarp wrapped thing on his lap had been. Unlike with Mipha where he could trick himself into thinking her grace was enough to remember her, by the utter lack of anything physical to hold close to him that was wholly Revali was striking and heart breaking. 

(Before he had left Sidon had brought Link one of Mipha's broches and a deep part of Link remembered the twisted morphed metal - according to the Zora Prince Link had made it himself when he had been a small child; a gift for his childhood friend.) 

Because of that he'd had issue with honouring his friends request but he couldn't leave Rito without giving the bow to it's new rightful owner. And so, when prompted he'd pulled himself to his feet, Teba jumping up to steady him like some kind of parent, and Link had held out the bow to the warrior.

They'd watched each other for a few moments, before the tarp had been tentatively taken from his trembling hands. Teba had given him a weary look before unfolding the fabric; a choked gasp leaving him when he revealed what exactly lay underneath.

_**"I can't take this-"** _

The bow had been moved back towards him and, even though it pained him, Link pressed it back towards the white Rito, _**"He requested I give it to you himself."**_ He forced the words to come even as the memory of those last few moments still stung, _**"Said that you're not on his level yet but maybe if you had a bow to work towards being worthy of you'd grow quicker."**_

_**"That... that sounds like the Master Revali from the stories; a compliment wrapped in a thorn bush."** _

-*-

As he's leaving Rito village he's stopped, a package pressed into his hands and it's with great care, and a certain amount of scepticism that he opens it.

What he sees upon opening the brown sugar paper makes him chocked up. A worn white scarf rests in his hands, the tassels frayed and unravelling in some places, he looks up at the messenger Rito who looks unsure of what to make of his expression, **_"Elder Kanali said it was important to you; that it was yours before?"_**

Nodding he takes the scarf and wraps it around his neck, detaching and reattaching Mipha's broch to it. He gives his thanks before turning back towards the stable and finds his steps are lighter and easier to make. He may not have his friend's weapons but he has parts of them that are wholly them.

* * *

* * *

Eldin, his mother's birthplace, was his next destination.

The Gerudo desert is closer, but he needs time to figure out how he'll get into a town forbidden to men. Urbosa is a lot more shadowy in his mind; there is less to tie her down to him and he thinks that although he remembers little she would probably kick him into Hyrule castle with nothing but a stick if he were to break a sacred law of her people.

So the Goron's it is.

Closer to Eldin the temperature rises and when he passes familiar faces like Beedle and sees them sweating and huffing and puffing he cannot help but, for once, feel warm. No longer is there a ridiculous sense of cold in his bones. The volcano towers above him as he moves down the path, and he lets the sensations of the world around him pass through and around his very self.

Tiny pieces of a life before rise up but they don't overtake him; rather they coexist in his present self, like they're buried just beneath the skin - hidden to an extent but close enough to the surface to obviously be there. He lives through the roads he travels twice simultaneously; the echoes of tribal siblings ridding the air of it's tranquillity, a story he hadn't bothered to listen to sounds like it's being told in the background just as muted as it had been the day he heard it.

He passes a village, or rather what's left of one and he pulls up to the ruins, spotting the overhanging section of stone that will save him from the closing in storm clouds. It's just as he gets a fire going, his horse tied up inside the alcove and the new tarp he got from Rito village tied up also to act as a barrier against the elements that the heavens open. He shuffles to the edge of the fire, peaking in the gap between the broken wall and the tarp; watching the downpour.

Rain thunders against the ruins, attacks his tarp with disparaging success of getting past it and the world turns quiet except for the rain and the world goes still as everything in existence seems to find a place to hide and watch the rain. His hand finds its way to the new beads at his throat.

Link has no clue what the name of most of the spirits and gods that he attributes the world around him to, but he knows how _many_ there are and so, seeing the long journey ahead of him, he'd grabbed twine a small knife and chunks of wood and began whittling himself new spirit beads. He had no clue if he was supposed to have the beads blessed by a spring or a priest or priestess but he doesn't care for the moment. The beads have no spiritual meaning till they have names on them and for now they're just twenty six crudely carved balls of wood.

He thumbs over the one that's in the position he knows Rain held and watches as the spirits work their way on the world.

Beneath his feet weeds and grass reclaim what the world had taken from them and he leans back and lets time bend around him; the world trapped in their hollows by the rain and for a short incrementable moment everything is one and nothing at the same time.


End file.
